


Kitten

by RogueWitch



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Thor: The Dark World Compliant, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Rape/Non-con Elements, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-07 21:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 26
Words: 57,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6825949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueWitch/pseuds/RogueWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Bucky is recovering from his time with Hydra, he remembers someone important he left behind when he escaped.  With the help of Steve and the team, Bucky sets about righting this wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Memories

**Author's Note:**

> I really had every intention of not posting this until I finished one of my current stories, but it kept insisting itself upon me, and wouldn't let up. So, despite the fact that I have plenty of other stories that require my attention, here is my muse's latest work.

Kitten

Chapter 1

Steve rushed into Bucky’s room; his friend tossed and turned in bed, crying out for someone. Bucky had been sleeping better, remembering more and more of life before Hydra, but watching his friend shouting incomprehensible Russian in his sleep, Steve knew that they weren’t out of the woods, yet. Steve sat gently on the edge of the bed and aught ahold of his friends flesh hand before carefully shaking the frantic soldier awake.

Bucky’s eyes flew open and bore into Steve’s, even in the semi dark of the room, he could read the distress on Bucky’s face. “Kotehok,” Bucky searched frantically around the room, but didn’t find what he was looking for. His eyes went back to Steve’s, a little too wide. “Steve, they still have her.”

“Still have who, Buck?” Steve let go of his friends hand and watched as Bucky scrubbed his hands over his face and pushed up against the head board.

“Kotehok,” he shook his head as if trying to dislodge half remembered pieces of memories. “Don’t know her real name, she was a present.” He spit the word out like it had personally offended him, and if Steve was reading his friends twisted features correctly, it probably had. “They sent me to Virginia on a mission.” Bucky was clearly trying to choose his words carefully, a far off look in his eyes as he concentrated. “As they were cleaning up,” he hesitated and then nodded, deciding not to go into any more detail than that. “As they cleaned up I noticed this girl, Steve you should have seen her. All curves with big brown curls spilling down her back. Someone must have seen me looking,” Steve reached out to his friend, but Bucky turned away, not wanting any kind of comfort as he told his story. “Because the next thing I knew, they were shoving her into my cell.” Bucky ran his fingers though his hair, pulling at the long locks, tucking his face into his knees. “It’s all my fault.” He took a deep breath and looked up into his old friends eyes. “They’d brought me girls before, skinny, emaciated things that I showed no interest in, after a while they’d take them away again, for god knows what. But this girl, she was different.”

“Buck, you don’t have to tell me,” Steve lay a hand on his friends arm, and Bucky let it stay there.

“I do,” he lay his head back against the head board and stared at the corner of the wall like it held the meaning of the universe. “I have to, because I need you to understand.” He huffed out a breath and took the time to organize his thoughts again, before going on. “They told me she was my pet, for being such a good soldier, or helping change the world. This poor naked girl, shivering in the corner of my cell, her entire body shook but she didn’t utter one sound, she didn’t cry or beg, she just had this determined set of her jaw, and didn’t move. When they left I pulled my shirt over my head and handed it to her, and she just rolled her eyes at me, and snatched it out of my hand. She was so full of fire and vigor, and I took care of her, made sure she ate; she fought me tooth and nail about everything. Eventually she relaxed and started to trust me; this crazy man she was locked in a cell with.” Bucky shook his head when Steve reached out to him again. “God, Steve, they sent me out on a mission and she sat neglected. No one fed her or looked after her while I was gone.” He looked down at his hands, flexing against the hem of his sleep pants, old ratty things that Steve had loaned him when he first came to the Avengers facility, washed to a dull grey, though they had once been blue plaid. “They pumped me full of all kinds of drugs when I was on a mission, kept me compliant, then they’d pump me full of more when I got back and threw me back into that cell, out of my mind on all kinds of hallucinogens.”

“It’s okay,” Steve said uselessly, there was nothing okay about it. Steve pushed himself back into a chair by the bed and watched his friend struggle. He looked hollow and alone, looking up at the ceiling for answers that he’d never find there. “I can only imagine.”

“The things I did to that poor girl,” Bucky shook his head. “You can’t imagine. I’d fuck her until I came down, and she’d hide from me for days, tucking herself in the corner, pulling at the stupid shirt I gave her the first day, even though it was filthy and ragged.” His fingers locked into his hair, and servos of his metal arm whining and screaming and he strained against the images in his own head. “Then slowly she’d creep back out and start to trust me again, trust me not to hurt her or touch her. Then fucking Hydra would start all over again. After a year of forcing me on her, they introduced her to the chair.”

“Strong girl,” the Captain said, waiting for Bucky to continue. “Lasting a whole year.” Steve went to get up; figuring that was the end of the story, but Bucky stopped him.

“She’s amazing, Steve,” his hollow gaze met his friends, and Steve could see fire ignite behind the dead eyes. “And I left her, I forgot her.”

“How do you know they kept her once you got out?” he didn’t want to sound harsh, but what would Hydra’s use be for some girl they’d used to keep their Soldier compliant.

“They trained her,” Bucky picked at his nails and sighed. “Just like me, conditioning, memory wipes, pumped her full of all kinds of chemicals, and then there was the chair.” He shivered at the memory. “Until they started to send her out with me.”

“She was your partner?”

“In every way,” he ran his hands thought his hair again; trying not to think of all the ways Hydra used him to break his little Kotehok. “Eventually they didn’t need to use drugs on us, it was ingrained that we’d come back from a mission, fuck, then take care of each other’s wounds and start again. She was beauty and grace and deadly, and I forgot her in that hell hole.”

“As you were recovering from brainwashing, Buck,” Steve shifted in his seat. “How long?”

“Six years, give or take,” the Soldier said. “When we were together, they didn’t need the ice as much to keep me compliant; they only needed it when they separated us.”

“Where was she when you were in DC?” there hadn’t been a girl with him, Steve would have noticed that, Natasha would have definitely noticed.

“Another assignment,” Bucky shook his head. “We gotta find her, Steve, gotta get her out.”

“We will,” Steve clapped his hand on his friends shoulder. “Get dressed; Tony should be in his lab.”

“Things I did to her,” Bucky licked his dry lips and pulled himself out of bed. “She’s never going to want to be near me again.”

“We’ll figure that out once we get her out,” the Captain strode out of the room. “I’ll make coffee, I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

*****

Steve and Tony stood in the billionaire’s lab, all kinds of data feed up on the holoscreens. “Widow dumped all of SHIELD onto the net, which means all of Hydra,” Tony flicked through footage of the Winter Soldier they’d managed to track down. “Your girls gotta have a file in this mess somewhere.”

“You called her something,” Steve prompted his friend, whose eyes were glued to the videos playing in front of him.

“Kotehok,” Bucky supplied. “Means Kitten.”

“Oh, that’s cute,” Tony said, pulling up a keyboard and starting to type. “You had a little pet name for her.”

“Yeah, very cute,” Bucky wanted to roll his eyes, but didn’t take his eyes off what Tony was pulling up. “I called the girl I spent the better part of six years raping and violating by a pet name,” he mumbled.

“Doesn’t look like she’s protesting much,” Tony pulled up a video, it was grainy, but clearly the Winder Soldier in full battle gear, save the mask, with a brunette, her hair tied into a braid down her back, her legs locked around his waist, lips firmly attached to his. “Looks pretty happy to me.”

“We were brainwashed and programed, Stark,” he threw a crumpled sheet of paper into a trashcan with a little more force then intended. “Who knows how much of that was real for her.”

“And how much of it was real for you,” Bucky just glared at Tony, who ignored him. “And here’s her file.” The picture of a pretty girl, long thick curls surrounding her face, full lips turned up in a wry smirk. “She looks familiar.”

“Lady Darcy,” Thor’s voice boomed from the lab door.

“You found her,” Jane clutched Thor’s arm, tears springing up in the corners of her eyes.

“You know her?” Steve strode over to the door, looking down at Thor’s girlfriend.

“She was my intern,” Jane looked up at the Hydra file on the screen. “She disappeared from Culver about six years ago, I looked for a while, harassed the cops on campus, put in a missing person’s report, but nothing ever turned up.”

“Looks like we got a name for your girlfriend, Bucky Bear,” Tony said, Darcy’s Culver University ID badge went up on the screens along with her entire Hydra file. “Darcy Marie Lewis, of Manhattan Kansas, orphaned at age twelve.” Video of the two soldiers popped up, both in full battle gear, back to back, gunning down anyone who came close. “Code name: Kotehok, continuation of Project Winter Soldier, looks like they were trying to duplicate what they did to you, minus the bionic arm.”

“Well, she came into it with all four limbs still attached,” Bucky said impassively. “She didn’t start out as a Super Soldier Project, either.”

“But we found her,” Jane kept looking at the screens, the grainy video of Bucky with the girl played in one corner in a loop, while others of them fighting and training filled other screens. “What did they do to her, why Darcy?”

“They gave her to me,” the Soldier looked down, shame written all over his face. “Because I showed an interest. They gave her to me for being a good soldier.”

“She showed resistance,” Tony flicked through the notes in her file. “So they kept her around. It says they could keep from using the ice on their Soldier, that she kept you from throwing off your programing as long as you were happy, and you were when the two of you were together. Increase dopamine and serotonin levels, in both subjects, it says. There were also increased levels of Oxytocin and Vasopressin, you both weren’t just happy; whether it was from the chemicals they doped you with or from natural inclinations, you were in love.”

“Everything that happened to that girl is my fault,” the crack of Jane’s had across his face wasn’t a surprise, he deserved that much and more. “What was her last known location?”

“Outside Moscow,” Tony said, eyeing the astrophysicist with caution. “But we’re going to have to track her in real time; this intel is six months cold.”

“Jarvis,” Steve addressed Stark’s AI. “I need you to pull up a map of all known Hydra facilities.” A map came up across the screens, dotted in red. “We’ll work this like any other mission. Call in Natasha and Clint, we need intel; Stark see what you can dig up, Jarvis, start running facial recognition. Everyone grab your go bags, we’ll need boots on the ground the second we confirm sighting.”

*****

They moved their search up to the War Room scattering intel as it came up, Darcy’s full Hydra profile on display, video running in loops, any information they could find on the girl was pulled and catalogued.

“Holy shit,” Clint stepped off the elevator, his eyes locked on the brunette’s photo. “That’s Darcy,” the whole room turned and looked at him. “I was in New Mexico, she was a cool kid, we went out for drinks while Jane obsessed over her machines, she went back to school,” he shrugged. “Cops said her case was closed, only means one of two things, she was found, or her body was.”

“Apparently not,” Tony nodded toward the footage of her and The Winter Soldier fighting. “Hydra picked her up.”

Natasha watched from the doorway, silently assessing the girl from behind her partner’s frozen stance. “You trained her,” she said to Bucky, who wouldn’t meet the Widow’s eyes. “I don’t need confirmation, I can see it.” Natasha flicked some files across the holotable and skimmed, glancing up at the facial recognition scans. “It’s not going to be easy bringing her in; they’re going to get her in and out for missions. They already lost one asset, they’ll be more careful with this one.” She watched Bucky sink into himself further. “I forgave you, Yasha. She will, too,” Natasha told him quietly in Russian, her hand soft on his metal shoulder.

“You don’t know what sins I’ve committed, Natalia, don’t presume to absolve me,” Bucky replied in clipped Russian, shrugging off her hand. “Just find her,” he stood up and stalked over to the elevators, pushing the down button. After a pause, Steve followed.

Bucky stalked into the underground shooting range and flicked open his locker. He grabbed his SIG Saur and checked the magazine before tucking in into the back of his cargo pants and repeating the process with a pair of Glocks, each claiming a place in holsters built into the pants large side pockets. Bucky called up a program for his targets and set the lights strobing, pulling one gun at a time as he bad his way along the gallery, hitting each target with practiced precision, and then moving on. The weight of the guns in his hands and the task in front of him brought silence to his mind. He pushed thought of his Kitten from his brain as he put each pullet into a target; two in the chest and one in the head, insurance that your mark would not be getting back up. He couldn’t remember if that was Hydra or Red Room, or even the good old US Army that had drilled that into his head, but it hardly mattered, it was efficient and affective, and it kept his mind silent.


	2. Cascade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this chapter happened a little more quickly then I expected it to. Thank you so much to everyone who left comments and kudos!

Kitten

Chapter 2: Cascade

“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Clint asked, watching the elevator doors close behind the two super soldiers. Bucky was always tense and edgy, but he was used to Steve being pretty collected, and he looked anything but even keeled.

“Bucky remembered something,” Tony continued to mine through the information that JARVIS was pushing on to his tablet. “We need to get Bruce up here to look at these records.” He looked up at Clint who was doing his best to bore holes into the billionaire’s head with his eyes. “Okay, long story short, Hydra snatched at girl,” he pointed up to the picture centered on the holoscreens. “That girl, from Culver. Gave the poor thing to their Soldier to play with; when she was still kicking after a year, and let’s face it, that’s a feat, cause we’ve all seen Bucky Boy hit; they introduced her to the chair they’d been using on our resident brain washed assassin.” Tony paused to let the implications sink in. Clint sat down slowly in one of the chairs and watched the video feeds, dread churning in his gut. “They used electroshock therapy and chemicals to make her compliant, though after a year of never knowing when your cell mate would get juiced up on stimulants and hormones and hallucinogens and rap you until he burned them off,” Tony trailed off, the sound of Jane quietly sobbing in the corner, breaking his heart. “What I’m saying is it probably didn’t take much to get their brainwashing to stick.”

“Jesus,” Clint ran his hands over his face, unable to take his eyes off the girl on the screens. Darcy’d made fun of his taste in music while they sat in a dingy bar in the middle of the summer in New Mexico waiting for Jane to settle down enough to get back to work. She’d laughed, saying a guy named Clint who listened to country music should always wear a cowboy hat, before stealing a sip of his beer.

“You even twenty one, darling?” Clint asked, sliding his glass out of her reach.

“Asking if I’m legal, cowboy?” Darcy winked and signaled the bar tender to bring another round.

“Just wondering if I’m going to get arrested for corrupting a minor,” he slit the new glass way from her grabby hands and made a beckoning sign to her. “Nope, give up the goods, girlie.”

Darcy rolled her eyes and dropped her Kansas State ID in his hands. “Been legal all summer, haws,” she reached out and picked up her glass from his hands and took a long drink. The next day he showed up to the lab in an old white Stetson. Darcy laughed so hard she got hiccups.

The girl Clint watched on the screens still had the same magnificent blue green eyes, but instead of being full of laughter, her eyes were like steel as she wrapped her legs around some poor guys neck and used her hands to wrench this head around until she broke his spine, landing gracefully on two feet as the corpse crumbled below her. He’d watched Natasha do the same move a hundred times, both in and out of the sparking ring, but somehow it was more terrifying to watch Darcy do it. Clint could still feel her pillow soft list against his cheek as she laughingly stole his cowboy hat and asked if Jack booted thugs gave piggy back rides. He’d let her keep the hat when she went back to Culver, along with his phone number. Jane called him when she went missing.

Clint watched as Thor held Jane carefully in his arms, rocking the small astrophysicist gently, as fat wet tears streamed down her face and splashed against the Asgardian’s armor. They may know that Darcy was alive, but even if they could get her back, she’d never be the girl with laughing eyes, who stole his hat and sent him dirty text messages when she was bored, again. He loaded his tablet with the information Stark had gathered and went to go reach out to his contacts. Natasha was still watching the feeds when the elevator doors closed.

*****

Bucky sat in the dark of the gun range, his three empty guns disassembled in front of him on the floor, an oiled rag in his hands, working it slowly over the pieces. He could feel Steve watching him from his place in the gallery, but he didn’t pay the other Super Soldier any attention. Bucky cleaned each gun slowly and carefully, absorbing himself into the task. Pushing thoughts of Kotehok from his mind, the soft feel of her against him as he’d sit on the floor with her between his splayed legs, her back against his chest as her small hands worked her own oiled rag into the pieces of her guns. He pushed away the thoughts of how her eyes would darken as she put the guns away and she’d link her fingers through his and pull him down the corridor to their cell. She’d already be dropping items of clothing on the floor before the door was completely closed. Her nimble fingers would work the straps and buckles of his uniform with carful and practiced precision as she pulled him across the floor to their bed, while his hands wondered down her pale porcelain shoulders, her firm round breasts just waiting to be touched.

Bucky shouted in frustration, throwing the rag across the gallery with as much force as he could, startling Steve to his feet, the other man’s Stark Pad hitting the leather bench with a dull thud. The Soldier curled in on himself, fisting his hands in his hair, pulling until it hurt. Would there be nothing that he could do that wouldn’t bring about memories of her? The memories were tumbling in cascading waves through his consciousness. He could hear her pleading tearful cries as his metal fingers closed around her throat and he pushed her into the thin mattress of the cot in his cell. He licked two fingers from his flesh hand and pushed his legs between hers, wetting his fingers before pushing them between her legs, using his body to keep her from clamping them shut. He roughly prepared her body before sheathing himself in, bottoming out in her unprepared body, fighting her end with ever stroke. She clutched at his metal arm with both hands, trying to pull it away from her throat as fat tears rolled down her face. The hormones and chemicals pumping through his body just made him want to fuck her harder.

Curled up in the corner of the gun range, his knees tucked up to his chest, Bucky pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, willing the memory away. Bucky slid his weapons back together and pulled himself off the floor, stalking across the distance to the lockers and depositing his guns in his, checking each safety before he closed the locker with a soft metal click, and rested his head against the cool steel.

Bucky pushed off the locker and walked back to the elevators, Steve, his silent shadow only steps behind. “You don’t need to follow me around, punk,” his voice was gruff and hollow, and he cringed at the sound of it. “I can manage just fine on my own.” Steve doesn’t say anything, just nods. He doesn’t need to, Bucky knows that stubborn set of the stupid punk’s jaw, he’s stuck with Stevie for the long run, no matter what other horrors his mind digs up.

*****

Hot water from the shower cascades down his back, both hands pressed to the cool tile wall. Bucky tilted his head back and let the spray hit him directly in the face, enjoying the sticking of the water on his sensitive skin, biting into the corners of his eyes, and running down his face. One thing they’d never had when under Hydra’s tender care, was a nice hot shower. Sure they’d been allowed to clean themselves, but the water was never hot and it was never often enough for his Kotehok, who would complain about her greasy hair and itchy skin. He learned to help her French braid her hair, that was what she’d called it, his mother had called it plaiting when she did Rebecca’s hair. Kotehok’s impressive mane of hair was beautiful. He learned partially to appease her and partially to keep the thick mahogany strands from catching in the plates of his prosthetic. He would wear a thin leather glove as he braided her hair, tight against her scalp, while she sat between his spread knees, her legs crossed neatly, a whet stone and a knife in her hands. She always hummed while she worked, half remembered songs or sometimes tunelessly when she couldn’t remember any songs to sing. When he’d finish, she’d lean back against his chest and nip at his chin, his arms around her waist and her knives forgotten.

Stark was right, whether from the chemical cocktails or natural progression, Bucky was in love with her. He knew with a startling ferocity that he’d never felt that way about another person before her, and it left a sick churning in his gut.

*****

Natasha combed through all of the Hydra files connected with the Winter Soldier Project, each new document that touched her screen painted an even grimmer picture of what Darcy had been enduring for more than six years. From what Stark had found, Natasha suspected that the drug induced rape the girl had endured at the hands of the Winter Soldier was probably not nearly the worst of what happened to her. Darcy’d been pumped full of serum, drugs, and hormones; she’d been trained and frozen and experimented on. Hydra’d sent her out with their Soldier to kill on command, and she was going to have to deal with each of these horrors if they could ever get her back. But what made her blood run cold were the reports from her medical files. “Tony, call Steve,” Natasha closed her tablet down and sat patiently. She could see concerned glances from Tony as he watched her from where he was updating information as they gathered intel.

“You found something?” Tony dropped his own tablet on the table and pulled out his phone. “Cap, get your ass up here, Natasha looks spooked, and I’m gonna go out on a limb and say anything that spooks our scary assassin, can’t be good.”

Natasha waited, her hands folded over her tablet, for the team to reassemble in the War Room. She took a long deep breath and tried to settle her face into its usual impassive mask, though she could feel the cracks forming in her armor. She’d never met the girl, but Clint had told her stories; early on, before Darcy disappeared, and then after, with a fondness of budding affection cut short.

The team sat quietly and waited for Natasha to collect her thoughts. She stood slowly, pushing her chair back just enough to stand between its weight and the table, and activated her tablet. She pushed the medical files up to the holoscreens, along with the reports on something called Project Valkyrie. Natasha let the boys read what was up on the screens before she said anything. “Project Valkyrie is Hydra’s newest attempt at creating and army of super soldiers,” she clicked through to another file. “It started before they introduced Ms. Lewis to their latest incarnation of the super serum.” Natasha had to look away from the table, not wanting to see their faces when she told them the next bit of news. “They wanted to breed super soldiers. Hydra hoped it would take only one serum enhanced parent to transfer to the next generation, since they only had one. Ms. Lewis had two viable pregnancies before she was started on what Hydra refers to as Serum Therapy. The fetal tissue was transferred to a surrogate uterus, neither successfully survived to term, though the records aren’t specific as to whether they were aborted or miscarried. What it does confirm is that you need two enhanced parents for the transfer to happen.” You could hear a pin drop in the room; all six men had their eyes glued to the screens. “Ms. Lewis had seven confirmed pregnancies after the serum took effect. None surviving the first trimester in surrogacy.” Natasha clicked over to her last file. “I’m telling you all of this, because we are now under a deadline,” she glanced at Bucky as realization dawned on him.

“She’s pregnant,” he whispered.

“As far as we know, since out intel is six months old, but yeah, just about six months,” Natasha confirmed. “They did not transfer this pregnancy, which means we have two months to find her, and it’s gonna be much harder, because she won’t be out in the field when she’s rounding out her second trimester.”

Bucky put his bionic hand through the wall on his way out of the War Room. For once, Steve let him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave your comments in the space below.


	3. Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter came to me so hard last night that I literally could not sleep, even though I was bound and determined to write the next chapter of "Not What I Expected" But Darcy demanded that she make an appearance in this story before we got too much further.  
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 3: Pieces

She slowly unbuckled her uniform, ghosting her hands down the rough fabric and peeling it away from her body where it stuck to her skin, drying blood and grime gluing the material to her body. She had a vague impression of not being along in the dank shower room, of strong hands helping her unbuckle the harder to reach straps, hands running gently down her bare skin, and unbraiding her hair. She looked around the dim concreate room, but she was completely alone.

She dropped the dirty uniform down the shoot and stepped into the shower stall. Tepid water flowed down hard from the shower head, stinging her skin and washing rusty red down the drain as she quickly rubbed soap in her hair and down her body. She had just enough time to rinse the conditioner out before her allotted five minutes of shower time were up, and the tap abruptly stopped running, and she was left shivering and wet in the cool air.

The rough material of the towel was harsh against her chilled skin as she rubbed herself dry. She ignored the irritation, assets did not feel discomfort. She rang the excess water out of her hair, before rubbing the towel through it, drying it the best she could. She pulled on the black sports bra and cargo pants that were waiting for her on the metal bench across from the shower stalls. She watched her reflection in the dirty mirror; her hand ran along the pale pink scar that ran across the front of her pelvic bone. She couldn’t remember her mission in Moscow, but the map of scars and bruises on her skin said it probably hadn’t gone to plan. Her handlers had said nothing, so whatever went wrong, she’d taken out her mark. That was after all, the only thing that mattered. The mission was all a blur, after was nothing but vague impressions of blood and the smell of antiseptics, cold hard rooms and pain, Assets don’t feel pain; pain distracts from the mission. There was nothing solid in her mind before she stepped into the shower room. She shook her head. None of it mattered anyway, they would give her the information she needed to function to the highest level, and she didn’t need to think outside of what they told her to think.  
She zipped her pants, the scar would be gone by morning, not even a faded memory, it wasn’t important. She’d train harder, push her body further, become better, her handlers demanded perfection, anything less would be punished. She wouldn’t let her weak body fail her again.

She slipped out of the shower room, the concreate of the hall slapped against the bare soles of her feet as she made her way down to her room. The silence loud to her ears. A half remembered voice flitted through her mind, deep and rumbling, pulling the muscles of her stomach tight with anticipation. The silence pressed down on her as she opened the door to her room and let it click shut behind her. The gentle whirl of the lock engaged and the tension flowed away from the knot at the top of her spine.

She sat at the edge of her bed and pulled a brush through her damp hair, the ends curling around her fingers as they begin to dry. Slowly she pulled her hair into a tight braid. The tickle at the back of her mind told her that it sued to be easier, that a second set of hands had once helped her, big calloused hands gently pulling the strands of her hair tight against her scalp. She hummed to herself as she wove her hair together. She made a quick loop of her hair tie around the base of the tail, and then let the heavy weight fall against her spine, the tip just tickling the skin above the top of her pants. She dropped down on the bed, the heavy wool blanket itched her skin as she tucked it under her chin, curling her feet up and closed her eyes. Assets do not feel discomfort, nothing distracts from the mission. The lights went out and her mind went blank, sleep over taking her.

Faces came to her in her dreams. Half remembered and muddled. A dark haired woman, just this side of too thin, smiled down into a yellow mug, steam rising up around her face and mirth bubbled from her lips. An older man with a kind face and deep creases around his eyes looked on as the thin woman spoke, her arms flailing wildly around her, no sound filtering through the dream. A car in the desert chased lights dancing down from the sky. A sharp thrill of adrenalin sparked through her body as the lights touched the desert sand, kicking up a dust storm. A tall blond man grinned down at her, his blue eyes filled with laughter. His shoulders were wider then she was tall, but his size caused no apprehension. He drank deeply from a chipped white mug before smashing it to the ground. Her dream self flinched, but she didn’t. There was a man with a crooked nose and sandy blond hair smiling at her, saluting her with a glass of dark liquid, throwing his head back and laughing soundlessly at something only he could hear. In the bright sun he tipped his white hat at her, his sandy hair peering out around his ears and the base of his neck under the hat. She felt like she could almost reach out and touch the half remembered memory, just a little further and she could make it real, but the lights in her room blazed to life, burning her eyes that were adjusted to the total blackness, and the man in her dreams disappeared.

*****

She fought to keep her face neutral as the guards pushed a bound and naked man through the door, his knees cracking against the concreate floor, his head held down to look at her booted feet.

“As you know, my lovely Kotehok,” she did not flinch at her handler's words, he sneered at her from the doorway, she made close eye contact, not looking down at the man at her feet. “Good service is rewarded.” He grabbed the man’s hair and roughly pulled him up to face her. A flash of recognition flew across his face before he schooled his features. A cruel snarl settled across her full lips. “We caught this SHIELD dog for you. See that you train him properly.” The handler gave the bound man a swift kick, sending him sprawling at her feet, the hands bound behind his back useless to catch him.

She waited for the door to close again before she looped a hand around the man’s bicep, pulling him back onto his knees. “Aww, Darcy,” his voice was full of sadness, not the laughing teases from her dreams.

“Don’t call me that,” she said, pushing him back onto his knees, giving him a good look up and down. He looked exactly like she remembered, not that she’d ever seen him naked, and the cold concreate room wasn’t doing him any favors. “Congratulations, you’ve got the dubious honor of being my new pet, dog,” she spat, her lips twisting again into a sneer. “I am your mistress; you will address me as such.” The man let out a short humorless laugh and started to push to his feet. The sharp crack of the back to her hand threw him back to the floor; a light trickle of blood ran down from his split lip. She roughly grabbed his jaw, using it to pull him back to his knees. She leaned down over him, taking in the hard look that passed over his eyes, and licked the drop of blood off his lip; she pushed her face against the side of his head. “I’m so sorry, Clint,” she whispered as quietly as she could, before crushing her lips to his, swallowing down his surprise and letting him taste his own blood on her lips. She pushed him back on to his heels again and turned from him. “You can stay right there, puppy,” she glanced over her shoulder, seeing the impassive mask fall back over his face. “Until you can learn how to be a good dog for your new mistress.”

She left him to kneel there all day, watching him out of the corner of her eye as she ran her knives across the whet stone. She could now remember how she would sit between her Yasha’s spread thighs, her back against his chest as she sharpened her knives and hummed to herself, his strong hands running all over her body. She had to fight not to flinch or let the memory overwhelm her enough to bring tears to her eyes. She watched her hands as they worked the knife, it was too big for her hands, it had been Yasha’s, they hadn’t cleared out his weapons, his clothes were gone, but not the weapons. Touching his things had been helping her remember things.

She pulled her pet to his feet and cut through his bonds with Yasha’s newly sharpened knife before re-securing one arm to the headboard of her bed. “You sleep on the bed as long as you behave.” She sat between his spread legs, her back to where she knew the camera was mounted, her eyes boring into his, begging for him to understand. He gave a sharp nod, and she risked a small smile.

She re-schooled her face and rolled off the bed securing her weapons in her locker and pulling off her boots, lining them up against the side of the bed. She slipped under the scratchy wool blanket, tucking it up under her chin, her back to the man tied to her bed. The lights went out at exactly nine o’clock, according to her internal clock that her handlers drilled into her head. Her programing dictated that she sleep as soon as the lights went out, but she pushed against the urge and counted to a hundred before turning over to face the man on the bed. She couldn’t see him in the pitch black, but she could feel the heavy weight of him on the bed.

“Clint,” she whispered, reaching out to him, her fingers tripping along the bare flesh of his thigh as she groped her way up to his face, waiting for him to flinch away from her. “Please tell me SHIELDs coming for you.” She could feel the tears threatening at the back to her throat. “Tell me we’re getting out of here.”

“SHIELDs gone, Darcy,” he said hesitantly, testing out the name again. When she didn’t lash out he relaxed minutely. “I’m gonna need you to answer some questions, baby girl, before I tell you anything.”

“SHIELDs gone?” she let the tears she was holding back, fall, splashing silently against Clint’s bare chest.

“Darcy,” his hand traveled up to her face, laying his hand against her cheek, feeling the wet tear tracks. “I need you to tell me where we met.”

“New Mexico,” Darcy said quietly. “I was Jane Foster’s lab assistant.”

“Good,” it wasn’t enough; Hydra could have told her that. “What was your nick name for the SHIELD agents assigned to Jane?”

“Jack booted thugs,” she smiled a little, even though she knew he couldn’t see. “Wasn’t my nick name, it was Eric’s, I just thought it was funny.”

“One more question,” he said.

“Then can I ask you questions?” Darcy asked in a small voice, her hand searching out his in the dark. She let him pull her against his chest. “I promise to find you pants in the morning, cause this is all kinds of awkward.”

“I’d really appreciate that, darling,” he tucked her carefully around him. “It’s cold in here.” She pulled the blanket up over this lap, doing her best not to touch anything that would make the extremely uncomfortable situation even more uncomfortable. “Now, what is my favorite song?” It wasn’t in his file; she only knew because it played at the bar, she thought it was so funny that he thought beer was going to come out her nose when she laughed.

“Save a horse, ride a cowboy, though in the past six years that could possibly have changed,” Darcy told him quietly.

“I got snatched looking for you,” Clint said, the tension ratcheting down the more manageable levels. “SHIELD fell about eight months ago, we picked up a friend of yours, and for the past few months we’ve been hitting every Hydra base we can find looking for you.”

“You have Yasha,” she sagged against him, sobbing in relief.

“That’s not actually his name, but yeah, we have him,” Clint told her. “What do you remember, Darcy?” he asked cautiously.

“I was on the Quad at Culver when they took me, I wasn’t paying attention, trying to come up with a good come back for your last text. It had come while I was in class, and I thought the professor was going to throw me out when I snorted so loud the whole class turned around. He made me stand up and read it,” she whispered. “They gave me to Yasha, just like they gave you to me. I was a gift for being good. You know they’ll expect me to try and break you.” She shook her head against his chest and continued. “I remember every moment, every time they pushed drugs though my veins, every time they dropped him back in our cell so high on stimulants he could barely walk straight. Everything.”

“His name is James Barnes, Darcy,” Clint told her. “He’s Captain America’s long lost best friend.”

“Captain America is just war propaganda, Clint.”

“Yeah, not so much,” he said, chuckling a little. “He’s a real guy, found him in the ice not long after you went missing. But your Yasha is Bucky Barnes, he’s been recovering with our team, and lately he’s been tearing through heaven and hell looking for you, babe.” He took a deep breath, running his hand carefully up and down her back. “Our intel told us you were pregnant, though.” He heard the hitch in her breath and quiet sobs. “I’m sorry.”

“The serum attached the fetus,” her voice hiccupped as she fought to push the words out. “They cut me open and pulled the baby out two months ago, that’s when my programing started to break down, when I started to remember. At first they just put me back in the chair and tried to wipe my mind. After the first few times I learned not to let on. I don’t know what happened to the baby or if it even survived.” She rubbed her face into his chest, hot tears rolling down his skin.

“Shh,” he rubbed his hand down her back. “Bucky’s coming, and he’s got some pretty awesome friends, including Thor, they’re my friends, too. We’ll get you safe and we’ll figure out what happened to the baby. I’ll get you home, I promise.” She nodded against his skin.

“You know you shouldn’t trust me,” Darcy said. “I could just be a plant; Hydra could be playing you to get information.”

“Could be,” Clint nodded, continuing to run his hands along her back. “I’m not telling you anything they don’t know already, Darce. Go to sleep baby girl, we’ve got a show to put on tomorrow, and I’m fucking exhausted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know how I'm doing.


	4. Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all are doing and admerable job keeping my plot bunny bouncing. I spent an entire day trying to write anything but this story, and finally gave up. I wrote this chapter and the next one over about four hours. Tomorrow I am bound and determined to update something else, despite how much I love writing this. I really need to work on one of my happy stories!  
> I hope you all enjoy.  
> Lots of Love!

Kitten

Chapter 4: Plans

“Well, that wasn’t the plan,” Natasha watched as Clint’s tracker blinked twice and went out, her eyes glued to the point on the map where her best friend had just disappeared. “What do you say, Yasha, this near where you were being held?” She asked over the comms, Bucky’s face pulled up on her screen. Bucky had been spending every moment that they were not actively invading Hydra bases, going over schematics of any base they could get their hands on.

“Looks right,” he pulled up the blue prints of the base that Hawkeye had just disappeared outside of, the hallways twisting and turning in a familiar way. “Can we make it bigger?”

“I can make it the whole room, Bucky Bear,” Tony tapped on his tablet and pushed the new commands to Bucky’s location; expanding the blueprints big enough you could walk through them. 

Bucky walked down the red holographic walls, mentally mapping where the cell had been, the shower room, and the gym. He flinched when he walked past what he was sure was the programming room. He could almost feel the weight of the chair behind those transparent beams of light. “Yeah, this is it.” He turned walked through a holo-wall, and dropped into a chair.

“Okay,” Steve clapped his hands, watching the walls fade, and the team look to him with determined expressions. “What’s the plan?”

“We need recon,” Natasha growled, watching the map like the blip that was Agent Barton would reappear. “We need to get in the air, just to rendezvous it’ll take twelve hours minimum, and then I want recon on the scene.”

“We’re talking not getting them clear for a good day, day and a half, Natalia,” Bucky snarled at the Widow through the holo-screens on the deck of his and Steve’s quinjet, Natasha just rolled her eyes. “Not acceptable.”

“I want my partner out of Hydra’s hands as much as you want yours,” she shot back. “But we have to do this smart.”

“I hate to say it, Buck,” Steve clicked through the blue prints again, looking at them from a wider angle, not just the part of the building that Bucky had recognized. “We’ve got five levels above ground, and three below before we can even breach were you remember being held. Not to mention the fact that we don’t even know if they’re being held in the same place. You know that if Darcy is pregnant they won’t be using the chair on her, which means she could be anywhere in the facility.”

“She may not even be held there anymore,” Tony’s voice came over the speakers, before he returned to the screen, reasonably, earning him a room full of glares.

“Gather what you need,” Steve told them all, minimizing everything and throwing it back onto his pad. He had plenty of time to look over schematics on the ride out. “We rendezvous at oh eight hundred.”

Bucky stalked out of the room, not bothering to look back at the rest of the team. He barely kept himself from beating the shit out of the wall again on the way out. Tony’d kept the first hole for posterity, but Tony wouldn’t be as happy to patch up a perfectly good quinjet. Sometimes he really hated the stupid billionaire.

*****

Darcy sat at the edge of her bed with Clint resting against her leg, feet tucked under him on the floor. Lights had come up at six, and Darcy had pulled them both out of bed, declaring the Clint was free to roam the room due to good behavior. She’d searched the room for something suitable for Clint to wear, since she was at this point beyond uncomfortable with his state of undress, especially after waking that morning up close and personal with Clint Junior. Sadly, there wasn’t anything even remotely suitable, and no matter how much she wished it, he was not going to fit into a pair of her pants. She’d opted instead to keep whatever she didn’t want to see below eye line, which left him sitting on the floor. She’d given him a pillow so his ass wouldn’t freeze.

They waited. Usually the door to her cell would unlock and breakfast would be presented, followed by instructions to head to the gym at the end of the hall for training. The door remained closed and locked and the hours ticked by. She went through her stretches, cleaned her weapons, changed her clothes from the night before, picked up her cell; all while Clint sat obediently on the floor, his eyes following her as she made her way around the tiny room. The lock finally engaged at ten, and her handler from the day before stepped in.

“Tie up your dog,” he threw a choke chain collar and a long chain to Darcy, who caught it neatly out of the air. “You have a debrief.”

Darcy turned away from the handler and went to put the collar around Clint’s neck. He dodged her, eyeing the spikes on the inside of the dog collar. It was the kind of torture device he wouldn’t have put on the most unruly dog, and was certainly not going to let anyone put that on him without a fight. Darcy caught him with the heel of her foot to the shoulder, knocking him sideways. He cracked his head against the headboard of the bed and went down. She grabbed him by his hair, the collar forgotten on the mattress, and back handed him, opening up the split on his lip again.

“Oh puppy,” she cooed disdainfully, dropping down in front of him and pulling him to his knees by her hand in his hair. “You’ve been such a good boy today for me; I’d hate to bruise that pretty face.” She leaned close licking his lips again before rubbing her face against the side of his head. “Please don’t make me hurt you, Clint,” she whispered, and clipped the collar around his neck. She looped the chain around the headboard, catching the handcuffs her handler threw at her next and securing his hands behind his back, clipping the chain to them, effectively immobilizing him.

“Your dog seems to be disobedient, Kotehok,” her handler said from the door. “Perhaps I can spare a few moments if you would like to discipline him.”

She nodded sharply. “Yes, sir,” she replied. “If you could spare a moment, I will be along shortly.”

“Good girl,” the door clicked shut behind him, but there was no sound of the lock reengaging.

Darcy leaned back on her heals and looked Clint in the eye, before reaching her hand between them and taking his limp cock in her hand. Clint’s eyes went wide and he tried to pull back away from her, only to make the choke chain pull tight against his neck. She leaned forward so her lips were just against his. “Protest, call me Mistress,” she whispered. He just looked at her. “Yasha taught me how to break someone, and he used sex to do it, my handler expects me to do the same to you.”

“Mistress,” Clint pleaded, trying again to pull away from her. “Please don’t.”

“Good, keep pleading, cry if you can,” Darcy kept pulling on his cock, feeling it slowly start to lengthen. “Now, listen closely, because we only have until you cum.” She looked him in the eyes, before putting her lips against his ear. “I don’t know where they’re taking me, or for what reason,” she told him, sliding her other hand around his waist, she pressed something hard and metallic into his hand. “They’re either sending me out on a mission, if they do, which I doubt, wait until the lights go out and unchain yourself, or their sending me to the chair for programing, probably to hurt you. Don’t let me hurt you, do what I tell you, when I tell you until I can shake off the programming. From what I can tell, from the time I leave here to the time I shake it off, it’s usually a couple of hours.” Clint’s breath started to quicken and she could feel him pushing into her hand now. “We’ll deal with the fall out when we’re safe, but I need you to do whatever you have to so that I don’t hurt you, when I’m under I can’t pull my punches. I don’t want to come out of programming to find that I’ve broken something or killed you. You do whatever you need to keep yourself safe. I may not look like it, but I’m much stronger then you are. If that means fucking me, you do it. Let out a moan if you understand me.” He let out a long moan and pushed harder into her hand. “Good, I know you don’t want this, and I can’t really say I do either, but I need you to know that I’ve thought about it.” She swiped her thumb along the head of his cock, gathering the pre-cum and spreading it down and around him. “I thought about you a lot before I got taken, I regretted not getting to spend more time with you before you got reassigned.”

“I did, too,” he whispered as quietly as he could. “I’m close, Darce, what else.”

“Just hold on, once I come out of it, it'll take me a while to remember what happened, but I will remember, so try not to make me do anything I'll regret later, or regret more then whatever I do end up doing. I know this is a lot on you, I'm sorry,” she smiled and caught his lips against hers, feeling him let go, coming in long spurts in her hand and across the leg of her pants. “Good puppy,” she said louder, using the bed sheets to wipe off her hand and quickly changed into a new pair of cargo pants. Then without a backwards glance, Darcy walked out the door.

*****

Darcy was escorted into a cold concreate room, the large metal chair that took up the center of the room made her heart beat handler. “Kotehok,” her handler said, looking over at her. “Please take a seat.” She had no choice; Hydra’s Asset would sit without question. She scooted herself back into the chair, leaning back against the back of the seat, letting them clamp the metal restraints down over her arms and legs. Her handler pushed a rubber mouth guard between her teeth and she said a quick prayer that Yasha and Clint’s friends would be there soon. The machine wailed to life, and her world exploded in pain.

*****

The Asset stood slowly, shaking the last of the twitching from her muscles and giving her handler a cool and assessing look. “Are you clear on your mission, Kotehok?” her handler asked, taking in the change in domineer from the woman who walked in. The new programming shining behind her eyes, her lips tilted slightly upward as the program took complete hold.

“The mission is clear, sir,” she walked out of the room without a backwards glance. The door to her cell opened silently in front of her, revealing a naked man chained to her bed, on his knees, his head bowed silently.

The Asset pushed the door shut with a quiet click, and the man looked up. Hope and then resignation flashed across his face. “Mistress?” he asked quietly, watching her every move as she stalked across the floor to him.

“Good dog,” she dropped to her knees in front of him, running her hands down his chest, watching the muscles jump under her hands. “You smell like fear,” she smiled and licked his lips slowly. “And sex, I like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Send me love, and suggestions. We're getting home soon, I promise, so let me know what you want to see once we're there.


	5. Tremble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, two days in a row. Because Darcy refuses to cooperate and let me work on any other stories, even though she's in those, too.   
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 5: Tremble

Darcy swam back to herself to find a sandy blond head pillowed against her chest, his long lashes resting against his cheeks and those magnificent arms wound around her waist. She stretched gently, trying not to wake the sleeping man, feeling that aching pull along her muscles and between her legs.

Clint woke as she ran her fingers through his hair. “You back with me?” he asked hesitantly, half expecting to get hit.

“Yeah, it’s all Darcy in here,” Darcy ran a gentle hand down his back. He flinched when she ran her fingers over a puncture. She pulled her hand back and saw it tacky with bloody, staring at her fingers in horror. “Oh god, Clint,” her rusty red fingers hovering over his skin. “Please tell me that’s not from the choke chain.” He wasn’t wearing it anymore, so at least that was a positive, but if it was from the collar, there would be more, maybe all the way down his back.

“It’s not from the choke chair,” Clint squeezed his arms around her body, and nuzzled the side of her breast with his head, trying to distract her from looking at his back.

Darcy pushed up, looking down the length of his body; the punctures formed an X down the center of his back. “Liar,” her voice hitched tight as she ghosted her hand over the marks that were still weeping blood. “God, I’m so sorry. No wonder you’re lying on your stomach.”

“Right, it’s got nothing to do with getting to rub my face in your very magnificent breasts,” he pushed her back down and settled against her shoulder.

“Clint,” she admonished. “I really am sorry.”

“No worries, Darling,” he shifted, trying to find a position that wouldn’t pull at the wounds on his back. “You can make it up to me later.”

“How?” Darcy couldn’t think of a single thing that would make up for raping and beating her friend. “By never touching you again, by disappearing from your life forever?”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” he looked up at her, the haunted look on her face making his stomach sink. “I was going to suggest a blow job, but if you never want me to touch you again, I’ll understand, and I’ll try.” Happy to see her give him a small smile, which he returned with a slightly wicked gleam in his eyes.

She barked out a sharp laugh and settled back down, feeling a little less like a monster. “You gonna return the favor, cowboy?”

“Already did, sweet heart,” Clint winked before settling back against her side. “How do you think I earned getting hit by the collar?” Darcy just coked her brow. “You said no teeth, you seemed to really enjoy it, but I still got hit with that stupid fucker.”

“A little teeth can be good,” she hummed. “You know, this is kinda how I imagined that this would be.”

“What, locked in a Hydra prison,” he teased lightly. “You recovering from brainwashing and me getting beaten by your homicidal alter ego?”

“No,” she shook her head and ran her fingers through his spiky and slightly greasy hair. They both needed a shower, like right now. “The easy banter and teasing. I always imagined you as a guy who would keep up with my snark, even in bed.”

“Yeah,” he smiled a little. “Me too.” Relief flooded through him. She wasn’t freaking out or breaking down. As horribly awkward and uncomfortable as their situation was, it was nice to share some comfort with a friend, and Darcy had been his friend before she was taken. He only hoped that she would still be, when they got home.

“It’s too bad my old phone is long gone, now,” Darcy sighed, her internal clock telling her it was only two in the afternoon, he’d been in her care for nearly a day and a half, where the hell was rescue? “I took a picture that I was way too nervous to send you, now I really wish I had.”

“Oh?” Clint asked, intrigued. They had been exchanging funny and flirty texts, some of them down right dirty, after he was reassigned, but they hadn’t taken it any farther.

“Yeah,” she carefully put an arm around his back, mindful of his injuries. “It was me in only your old hat. It would have been nice if the first time you saw me naked, someone else wasn’t in the driving the ship.”

“Too bad,” he agreed.

They felt the explosion as it rocked the room, before they heard it. Clint threw himself over Darcy, shielding her from any debris, making the punchers on his back start to bleed freely again. “Looks like our ride’s here,” Darcy said into his chest, his elbows on either side of her head.

“I really hope they’ve got pants for me,” another explosion rocked the facility and Clint tucked his head, trying not to notice how his hips were intimately cradled between Darcy’s thighs. The last thing he needed was to have a hard on when the cavalry blew the doors. “My nuts are fucking cold.”

Darcy threw her head back and laughed. “I can warm them up for you,” she said as he backed away from the warmth of her body.

“That wouldn’t be awkward at all,” Clint tossed her a pair of pants and searched for her bra as she tried to discreetly clean herself up. “Hey guys, you think you can come back in a few,” he mocked. “Bucky’s girl isn’t finished getting me off for like the fourth time today.”

“Really, fourth?” Darcy looked at her friend as he tossed her a mostly clean black sports bra. “No wonder I’m sticky. God, I want a shower, you really need one, too.”

“It wasn’t a half bad day,” he nodded. “You know except for the torture and fear, and some excessive use of finger nails on my ass.” He turned so she could see the bloody half-moon marks on the lower curve of his butt cheeks.

She sucked air through her teeth. She would apologize, but scratching wasn’t out of the norm when she was enjoying herself. “You probably weren’t fucking me hard enough.”

“I got that,” the lights flickered, but stayed on. Clint kept close to Darcy just in case. “You tell that assassin in your head to use her words.”

“I’ll get right on that, babe,” the cell door burst inward and Clint ducked over Darcy, who was still struggling to pull her bra on over her head. “Looks like the cavalries here.” Clint stood and helped Darcy up. She looked up to find an angry red head with a gun pointed at her face. Darcy lifted her hands in the air, her sports bra hanging ridiculously around her neck. “Please don’t shoot me.”

“Nat, put your gun down and get me some fucking pants,” he turned his back on his partner and helped Darcy get her clothes situated. “It’s all Darcy in this pretty head.”

“Why aren’t you wearing pants?” the red head’s eyes fell on the blood running down her friends back, before taking in the nail marks on his back side. “I withdraw the question.”

“Hydra sucks,” Clint said, accepting the gun and knife Darcy pulled from the lockers. “Babe, I got no place to put this,” he waved the knife. Darcy nonchalantly clipped a knife sheath around his thigh and slid the knife in. “Thank you, pants would be better.”

Darcy shrugged. “I work with what I got, hotshot.” She gestured for Natasha to lead the way. The red head just looked at her scathingly before leading them out.

*****

Darcy leaned back against the wall of the Quinjet when her memories of the morning started to filter in. They were never clear at first, feeling like she was watching through a fog before sharpening into horrible Technicolor focus. She remembered sniffing him, her face close in, just above his pubic hair, telling him he smelled like fear and sex. She blew across his cock and delighted as it twitched for her.

Darcy curled up on the hard bench and tucked her head into her knees, tears slipping down her face. Clint’s easy teasing made her feel safe. Remembering made her feel even more dirty.

The asset sat on the edge of the bed and used the choke chain to pull his face between her spread thighs. “Be a good dog and take care of your Mistress, puppy,” she’d cajoled, the sound of her sickeningly sweet voice made Darcy nauseated. “But if I feel teeth, I will beat you bloody. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mistress,” his breath ghosted over her lower lips, and Darcy squirmed at the memory of it. He’d treated her sweetly, kissing and licking gently, using the flat of his tongue to make the asset pant and scream. Finally, he’d gently scrapped his teeth against her clit, making her come hard, rocking forcefully against his face. She’d hit him twice with the choke chain before she released him from his bonds so he could fuck her properly. His words.

Darcy found him in the med bay, he still didn’t have a shirt on, but at least he had pants. The knife sheath she’d given to him, sitting on the bed beside his leg. Clint looked up at her tear stained face and held out a hand to her, pulling her into him, his legs bracketing her body. He held her gently as she placed her hands lightly on his thighs, a sob escaping her lips. “God, I’m so sorry.”

“Memories coming back, Darce?” he asked, as she pulled back from him, he kept his hands on her shoulders. Darcy just nodded, looking miserable. “I told you, nothing to be sorry for,” Clint held onto her chin, making her look him in the eye. She nodded and went to leave again, but he caught her hand as he flinched at something Natasha was doing to his back. “Damn it, Nat that hurts.” The other woman just grunted. “Could use some hand holding while the sadistic one digs in my back.”

“Stop squirming and this will go faster,” Natasha cuffed him over the head. Clint and Darcy snicker as he wipes tears off her cheeks.

“That’s what she said,” Clint added, and was rewarded by a small smile on Darcy’s lips.

“You both are twelve,” the red head sighed. “The problem isn’t the wounds themselves, it’s the fact that you used a cheap chrome plated choke chain, the chrome flaked into the punctures.”

“And Nat Nat has been cheerfully digging the shit out with what feels like a rusty pair of scissors,” Clint squeezed her hand as Natasha pulled out a small silver sliver. She held up the small pair of tweezers over Clint’s shoulder.

“Not rusty,” she declared, before going back to her task.

“See,” he pulled Darcy back into a hug. “It’s all good here. Nat and I are the two people who will never blame you for anything that happened while you weren’t in control. I promise, we aren’t upset, I’m not permanently hurt, and we, you and I, are good.”

“I’m still sorry,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

“I know, babe,” he ran his hands down the braid along her back. “But you and I are going to go home and hold our heads high as we walk off this jet. We’re going to get lots of fun therapy, and we are going to be friends, just like before.”

“I don’t think I’ll be up to dirty texts for a while,” Darcy told him, tears still slipping down her cheeks.

“You let me know when you are,” he gently kissed her cheek. “I’m sure I can rustle up an old Stetson for you.” Darcy just smiled into his shoulder, letting him hold her while she cried. He’d promised he’d get her safe, and he had, she’d worried about everything else later. “You about ready to go face the rest of the team?” She nodded slightly. “You sure, babe?” Darcy shook her head.

“But I will, anyway,” she told him. “Gotta do it sometime, best not put it off.”

“Good girl,” he kissed her cheek again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Onward home, and the rest of the team.  
> Let me know what you think!


	6. Business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are again, at least I managed to update one of my other stories before I was distracted by this one again. We're moving along, meeting the team, getting stuff out of the way.
> 
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 6: Business

Clint and Natasha lead Darcy into a small room off to one side of the Quinjet. Steve sat silently at the head of a small table, Tony paced around the far wall and Bucky was curled so far down in his chair, he looked like he was waiting for it to swallow him whole. They all looked up as Darcy walked through the door.

She gave them a small wave and Clint pushed her down into a chair, taking the one next to it, but not dropping her hand, which she was eternally grateful for. Natasha stood at her back, hands on the back of the chair.

“Umm, hi?” she said quietly, extremely uncomfortable with the people she didn’t know staring at her. Old Darcy would have said something sarcastic or funny, but she couldn’t formulate anything that would break the tension, and slumped down in her chair, unconsciously mirroring Bucky’s posture.

“So, don’t take this the wrong way,” the man who had been pacing, jumped down into a chair like he was ganging up on gravity against the offending piece of furniture, opposite Darcy. “Tony Stark, by the way,” she nodded and tried to give him a smile, but it wouldn’t stay on her face. “But we all can’t help but notice how pregnant you’re not.” Natasha glared at Tony over Dracy’d head, the smaller woman just flinched.

“Yeah,” Darcy fiddled with the sleeves of her borrowed sweatshirt. “Umm, they,” she took a sharp breath. “They took the baby two months ago.” Clint laced his fingers through hers and Natasha squeezed her shoulders. “Thanks,” she looked up at the older woman for a moment before looking back at the table. “My body started to reject the pregnancy, so they took it and tried to wipe me so I wouldn’t know.” She could feel the tear slip down her cheek. “I don’t know what happened to it or if it even survived being taken so early.”

“Okay,” Tony clapped his hands, startling her a bit, and jumped to his feet. “So we comb through all the information we got from the base and work from there.” He started firing up computers and tech throughout the room.

“Steve Rogers, ma’am,” the blond at the head of the table said, nodding at her. “If you don’t mind me asking, what do you know?”

“Everything,” she looked him dead in the eye until he looked away. “Everything that they programed Kotehok to do, everything I went through, every mission, every detail from the time I was taken from Culver until now. Everything my body was conscious for, anyhow.” Darcy pulled her hand from Clint’s and fidgeted with her sleeves, not looking toward Bucky, afraid of what she’d see there. “Everything they tried to wipe out started filtering back about the same time they put me back in the cell, after they took the baby.” She wiped away a stray tear with the back of her hand. “It started with small stuff, impressions,” she took a shaky breath and looked up, inadvertently catching Bucky’s eye. “Someone braiding my hair, helping with the buckles of the uniform; then it expanded to missions, then working with Jane Foster,” she tore her eyes away from the haunted ones of her former lover and started picking at the cuffs of her sleeves. “They kept putting me back in the chair, then they’d pump me full of drugs. After the fourth or fifth time,” Darcy shook her head. “I learned not to let on that their efforts weren’t sticking for long.” She swiped at the tears that wouldn’t stop running down her face. “But they still stuck me in that fucker this morning. I couldn’t keep that from happening.”

“It’s not your fault, darling,” Clint pulled her into the circle of his arms, using the pad of his thumb to wipe away a tear, giving her a significant look. “We both got out, mostly not worse for wear.”

“Nat get all the silver shit out of your back yet?” she countered, keeping herself from letting him comfort her too much.

“Yeah, we’re all good, babe,” he tugged just a little until Darcy sighed and laid her head against his shoulder, Natasha running her fingers down the younger woman’s braided hair.

“How are you so okay with this?” she mumbled into his sweatshirt clad shoulder.

“I think its story time, Hawkeye,” Natasha said quietly.

“Yeah,” the archer agreed, sitting up straighter, so he could look Darcy in the eye. “Just about.”

Darcy listened patiently as Clint tells his tale. He starts with his reassignment, when he leave New Mexico, he told her how her odd text message helped him keep his sanity while he watched the SHIELD scientists do Science, and he told her about Loki come through the Cube. She held his hand in silence as he recounted everything he remembered about his time under the God of Mischief’s control, how he’d been fully conscious of everything he was made to do, but completely helpless to do anything to stop it from happening. It was like he was shoved aside inside of his own body and made to watch as he obeyed each command. He looked her straight in the eyes when he explained how helpless he’d felt, forgetting everyone else in the room.

“I will never blame you for what you did when you were under Hydra’s control, Darcy,” Clint told her, the fingers of both of his hands laced through hers, their chairs turned towards each other, knees touching. “Whatever you remember, whatever they forced upon you, it wasn’t your choice.” He looked over at Bucky who hadn’t moved a muscle. “You either,” he said before turning back to Darcy.

“Not everything I did to you was under their control,” Darcy looked down at their intertwined fingers. “Everything you did, you did under the Staff’s influence. I chose to hit you, with my hand, under my own control, I chose to touch you without your permission.”

“To convince our captors that you were still under their control, baby girl,” he told her, not leaven room for argument. “Just because you made the choice, does not mean you weren’t doing it under their influence.” Darcy just nodded, her face wet and stinging with the tears that would not relent.

“We have all been the victims of others influence, Darcy,” Natasha told her, still standing at the other woman’s back. “What you did made sure that both you and my dumb ass partner were as safe as you could be, and for that, I owe you a debt.”

“I saw an opportunity to save myself,” Darcy told her seriously. “I took it, you owe me nothing.”

“I understand if that’s the way you choose to look at it,” the red head nodded, her hand never leaving Darcy’s shoulder. “But my feelings on the subject remain.”

Tony plopped back into his chair, making more noise than Darcy thought was strictly necessary, pulling attention back to him. “Thor’s going to be bounding about like a restless puppy when we get back,” he grinned at the table. “I hope Jane remembers to walk him.”

“Thor’s back?” Darcy asked, turning back to face the table.

“Been back for a while,” Steve said. “We’ve got a lot to get you up dated on.”

“You’re one to talk, Capcicle,” Tony snorted. “Yeah, Point Break and Lady Jane are back at home base, we’ve all been taking turns staying back at the ol’ homestead,” he leaned back and propped his feet up on the table. “Well, all of us ‘cept for Barnes.”

“Why?” Darcy watched her Yasha fidgeting in his seat. It was so strange to see him nervous that she couldn’t take her eyes off of him. She was rewarded with an almost smile twitching at the corners of his lips.

“You’re my responsibility,” he told her, shrugging, no wavering in his voice. He was so certain of his feelings. It was the first time he’d spoken, and Darcy’d startled with his clear voice, devoid of the thick Russian accent she was used to.

“Says who,” she challenged.

“I was charged with your care,” he pushed back, rising to her challenge.

“By Hydra, Yasha,” Darcy soothed. “You aren’t my Master anymore.”

“Don’t think the Asset was ever your Master, Kotehok,” Bucky looked down at his hands, breaking the eye contact with his girl.

“Do not call me that,” Darcy all but bit out.

“I’m sorry,” he tried to retreat further from her, pushing back into his seat again. “Darcy,” he tried out the name that felt foreign on his tongue. “I look at your face, and I remember the name I gave you, the one I’ve been calling you for the last six years. They may have twisted it, and made it theirs, but I gave it to you,” he reasoned. “Just like you see Yasha,” he glanced up at Natasha standing protectively over Darcy’s shoulder. “Natalia still calls me that, also. Natasha, I apologies,” the assassin just shrugged. “I see my Kitten.”

“We’re on the outside now,” Darcy told him, squeezing Clint’s hands in silent thanks for the role he played in helping that happen. “No one’s pulling our strings, we gotta be the people we were out in the world, now.”

“Is that really possible?” Bucky questioned. He wasn’t sure he could ever be Bucky again, not really, there would always be a lingering of the Winter Soldier hovering in his mind.

“I don’t know,” she conceded, her own asset watching from the corners of her consciousness, the quiet voice that whispered to her and conducted threat assessments every time someone spoke. “But we gotta try, I already promised Clint I’d work my way up to dirty texting, again.”

Bucky cocked his head, really taking in the comfortable way his Kitten and the Hawk held hands so casually, how comfortable they were together, even after their ordeal. “I’m not sure of what that means.”

“Means we’re working out how to be friends again,” she smiled quietly, watching him fidget in his chair, tucking his long hair behind his ear, and wishing she could get up and fasten it into a tight braid like she used to.

“You and I weren’t anything,” his disappointment was palpable.

“So we start fresh,” Darcy stood and walked around the table, holding out her hand to him. “My name’s Darcy Lewis, former intern to Dr. Jane Foster, recovering brainwashed assassin.” Clint groaned. “Too soon?”

“Little bit.”

“Nice you meet you, Darcy,” Bucky took her hand and kissed the back of it. “I’m Sergeant James Barnes, my friends call me Bucky.”

“Nice to meet you, Bucky,” she smiled a little sadly. “Can I call you Bucky?”

“I’m pretty sure that six years of what I can only imagine was very gymnastic sex, you can call him whatever you want,” Tony said, twirling slowly in his chair.

“I don’t think I like him,” Darcy said in a loud stage whisper to Bucky, who chuckled. “Now let’s get down to business, there is quite possibly a kid with our very unique DNA out there.”

“Right, we need to figure out what happened,” Bucky held out a chair for her, before guiding it back under the table.

“Bruce,” Tony addressed the live feed he’d pulled up on a holo screen. “We need medical work ups on Lewis here,” he told the vaguely familiar man on the screen.

“I’ll need her Hydra medical records, and everything you can get your hands on from the base to compare,” he was a bit scruffy and disheveled, but his face rang bells in Darcy’s head.

“Done.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next, Jane and Thor.
> 
> Let me know what you all are thinking, what you're wanting, and how I'm doing.
> 
> Feed the muse, please.


	7. Ready or Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello wonderful readers. I have yet again neglected all of my other works and updated this one.
> 
> Enjoy

Kitten

Chapter 7: Ready or Not

Darcy left eh Avengers to their meeting. She’d given them all the information she could, but it wasn’t anything they couldn’t just as easily find in the files they’d mined from the base. She watched the clouds pass by through a small window, barely feeling the jets movement under her feet and trying to come to grips with the fact that she was actually free. Her last memory of being on a plane was with Hydra, isolated and caged, heading away from her beloved Yasha, towards what had turned out to be her last mission. Darcy had used a sniper rifle to put a bullet though a politician who had been making his way up the food chain. She wasn’t up to her Russian Politics, that wasn’t a necessity as Kotehok, but he’d pissed someone off. Sadly, the fact that she’d been called up to assassinate him, probably meant he was a good guy, trying to do good things.

Bucky watched the girl as she stood a parade rest, looking out one of the small porthole windows. Her body language screamed of military training. He knew she hadn’t had any, that he’d down this to her, made her a good little soldier for Hyrdra, no matter what she said, somethings never left you. He watched as she stood with perfect balance, feet shoulder width apart, hands behind her back, one hand holding the other wrist. He approached slowly, mirroring her posture, his eyes out the window. Just standing at her side made some of the tension in his shoulders relax, even if it stirred his stomach in anticipation.

“Darcy,” Bucky said, using the name she preferred to try and ease his way into the conversation. “Can we talk?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she squared her shoulders and arched her back, trying to shake the feeling of being watched. She probably did have eyes on her, but she pushed it back, they were friendly eyes. “Bucky,” she added after a moment of hesitation, the name weighing heavy on her tongue. Yesterday he’d been Yasha, the man who trained her, maybe loved her; today, he was Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s best friend. It was a lot to wrap her head around.

“You don’t have to call me Bucky if it makes you uncomfortable,” he told her, still looking out the window at the slowly darkening sky. “Natalia calls me Yasha. I’ve made my peace with the fact that, that is how she’ll always see me.”

“But I need to compartmentalize, if I let you be Yasha, then there will never be a change, never be a difference from in there to out here. Bucky is out in the world, Yasha wasn’t real,” Darcy sat down on the bench running along the outer wall of the jet, watching Bucky’s eyes follow the streams of clouds going by. “I need to separate him from you, so that I can start to sort everything out. There’s just too much in here right now.”

“I understand,” Bucky’s eyes flicked from the window down to the small woman in front of him. She seemed so much smaller in her borrowed sweat suit that engulfed her body, hiding the lush curves he knew were there.

“No,” she shook her head and pulled her feet up onto the bench, tucking her knees up close to her chest. “You don’t. There’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to bask in your attention,” she pulled the cuffs of her shirt over her hands, scared that if she didn’t hold herself in check she’d reach out to him. “This part of me, that craves the easiness that we shared.” Darcy pushed her feet into the metal of the bench, grounding herself against the hard steel and the curve of the jet pushing against her spine. “But that part, call her what you will, maybe part Kotehok, or Kitten or Hydra’s Asset, or maybe the girl that broke under Hydra’s Soldier?” she didn’t look up, but she could feel him flinch. She felt a little bad about that, but pushed on regardless. “I don’t know if she’s real.” A lone tear slipped down her cheek, she’d thought she was cried out, apparently not. “I don’t know if the part of me that’s so in love with you that it hurts, is real,” this time she did look up, Bucky’s eyes shone with unshed tears and the painful mix of hurt and hope and love and resignation. “I need to sort that out before you and I can be alone together.” They weren’t along, of course, she could see Steve watching from the other side of the jet. IF his hearing was as good as hers, he was absolutely eves dropping. “Even just to talk.”

“I get it,” Bucky’s shoulders sagged, he wasn’t sure what he’d hoped for, but he hadn’t gotten it, maybe some reassurance that he wasn’t a monster, that she still cared, and maybe she did, at least some part of her, but it wasn’t enough. “I know I’m in love with you,” he wanted to sit on the bench next to her, take her hand a look into her sea blue eyes, like an unbelievable sap, but she hadn’t invited him to sit, she had told him she didn’t want to even talk, but there he was, running his stupid mouth. He let his hands fall to his sides, clenching his fists. “I also know I don’t know you, not really. I know I have no right to ask anything of you.” The little voice in his head that was the Asset railed against what he was saying. The Soldier knew the girl in front of him with picture perfect clarity, he knew every inch of her skin, what made her smile, how he could put her to sleep with just his fingers against her scalp, and a little bit of fingernails, how her head would tip back when she laughed, really laughed. And he knew that at the end of the day, she’d slip her hand into his when she fell asleep. “I hurt you, god, I raped you, how much of that was the drugs or programing. How much of what we had was carefully crafted by Hydra and whether or not you ever really wanted me. My entire body misses your heat against my chest as we’d sleep under that ugly green, itchy as hell blanket, and could still never get warm. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing they made you do is anymore your fault then it is mine,” Darcy said softly. If only she could make herself believe it, also.

“The Asset enjoyed it,” Bucky shook his head and sighed. He should just walk away, let them both heal, and find a way to live his life alone.

“The rape or the years after?” she challenged. “Because Kotehok? She looked forward to the end of a mission when she could curl up in her Yasha’s closeness,” she shoved her sleeves up her arms and used the backs of her hands to wipe her cheeks. “And that is exactly why we can’t do this, because I’m upset and feel alone and adrift, and all I want to do is curl up in your lap and let you take care of me, and that’s not healthy. I need to learn how to take care of myself.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky told her again, looking down at his feet.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” she gave him a wan smile, through her semi dried tears and her reddened eyes. “Just, we both need time, and therapy,” so much therapy, for like the rest of her life, and then some. “And I’d really like, kill for a cup of coffee,” Darcy watched Steve stand up and make his way to the front of the jet, whether it was because he was satisfied about how their conversation was going, or he was needed elsewhere, she didn’t bother to speculate. “Except, not really, because, god, the Darcy I was would totally have been a vegetarian if I didn’t love steak so much, and now I know what it feels like to break a man’s neck with my bare hands,” she let out a small hiccup and shifted back further against the side of the plane. “And now I’m going to curl up right here on this bench and have hysterics.” She looked up at the quiet man still standing over her. “Do you mind finding Clint or Nat for me?”

“I can do that,” Bucky turned to leave, but hesitated. “But when you’re ready, I’d like to get to talk, really talk. I’ll even bring coffee.”

“Sure,” Darcy nodded. “Just be patient.”

“I’ll try,” she watched as Bucky walked away, quiet panic blurring the edges of her vison. She could feel the clammy skin and greasy hair of the man she’d been sent to kill. The resistance of his body when she wrenched his head around was minimal. Darcy could almost hear the crunch of his bones grinding and breaking. Clint arrived just in time for her to vomit on his boots.

*****

Bucky stood at Steve’s back as the blond piloted the Quinjet silently over the Atlantic, speeding towards home.

“You alright, Buck?” he asked after a long silence, not taking his eyes off the horizon line. He could feel the tension radiating off of his friends skin.

“Not really,” Bucky mumbled, keeping a hand on the back of Steve’s chair. “I don’t know what I expected, but what she said, that wasn’t it.”

“Give her time,” Natasha said, coming up behind him, slipping quietly into the co-pilot’s chair. “You can see how strong she is, but she’s got a lot to deal with,” she settled a pair of head phones over one ear, the mouth piece still pushed up and away from her face. “She might know, intellectually that it wasn’t you who hurt her, she also sees you and she sees the face of her lover, and her tormenter. It’s very complicated. The fact that some part of her knows that it was Hydra that made you turn her into a murderer, she also has to deal with the fact that she spent the last five years being the bullet in Hydra’s gun, and that’s not going away anytime soon.”

“Is that what you see, too?” Bucky wasn’t sure he really wanted an answer.

“I’ve had more time, Yasha,” was all she said. Bucky nodded and looked back out the window.

“We’re about an hour out,” Steve turned and looked into the haunted eyes of his best friend. “Tony’s got Banner finishing up Darcy’s suite.”

“You mean her cell?” the soldier huffed. There had been endless debates about the accommodations for his girl over the past few month, not a single one he’d liked.

“We had no way of knowing what she’d be like when we found her,” Natasha told him, the old argument wearing thin.

“I don’t like you treating her like a caged animal,” he shook his head. “I get it, but I don’t like it.”

“It’s just a few locks and some Stark Industries bullet proof glass,” Steve reasoned. “Jarvis will monitor her, and as long one of us is with her, she’s free to move about the complex. Nothing different than what we did for you.” Bucky just nodded again and wondered back to stow his gear and get ready to move back into his room in Steve’s apartment. He’d had Steve, the Captain had insisted on moving Bucky into his rooms. Darcy didn’t have that. Jane had wanted her to come live with her and Thor, but with the amount of time they were gone, the team had voted against it.

He looked over to the brunette, wrapped up in the Hawk’s arms and felt his heart clench. Maybe Clint would stand up for her, put his foot down and move her out of that prison cell of an apartment. More than anything, Bucky warned to be the one to comfort her, to help her hold the pieces of herself together. He clenched his fists and made a sharp turn toward his bunk. How could he even hope to help her when he still wasn’t sure if he could hold his own cracked and bleeding soul from falling apart? Maybe Barton was the better choice. If that’s what she wanted, he would just have to let her go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know that I said Jane and Thor where coming up, and they are, just they didn't quite make it into this chapter.
> 
> Please don't forget to feed the author.


	8. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a really hard chapter to write, but in the end, I'm pretty happy with the results. Maybe happy isn't the right word.
> 
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 8: Reunion

Darcy could feel the weight of the team at her back as the ramp slowly lowered to the hot tarmac. Clint stood just close enough that if she needed, she could grab his hand, but not quite touching. Steve’s broad shoulders blocked her view out of the Quinjet, but she knew Jane was waiting for her, Clint had told her that she would be. Darcy was equal parts excited and apprehensive at the thought of seeing her old friend again.

The metal ramp hit the ground with a hollow thud, and Steve lead the group of them down to the simmering tarmac. The heat of the sun hit Darcy’s face and she stopped dead, tipping her face back to feel the full force of the warmth on her cheeks, slow salty tears leaked from the corner of her eyes. Even surrounded by the Avengers, knowing that if she tried to make a run for it, they’d stop her; with her face tipped to the sky, she felt free.

Clint put a hesitant hand on the small of her back, gently urging her forward. She shook the thoughts from her head and wiped the tears away with the back of her hand, finally spotting Jane for the first time. She stood in Thor’s shadow, up on her tip toes, one hand wound around her lover’s arm. The older woman was still wearing those ridiculously large plaid shirts, even in the heat, her cutoff shorts peeking out underneath. Even from a distance, Darcy could tell she’d lost weight, but then, six years was a long time. Jane dropped Thor’s hand and launched herself across the pavement towards Darcy.

The Asset leaked forward at the sudden movement, her programming throwing up threat assessments the same way that other people count footsteps, it was so automatic. Small brunette, one hundred and ten pounds, no visible weapons, loose clothing, threat minimal. No room for maneuvering, she took a step back to give herself space, running smack into the unyielding chest of Yasha, knocking the breath out of her, and brining her back to Darcy, the Asset leaking away like so much dirty water.

Strong hands gripped her hips, keeping her on her feet, those same calloused fingers she could remember running all over her skin. Darcy sucked in a harsh breath and stumbled forward; losing her balance and cracking a knee on the pavement, before Jane even reached her.

“Sorry,” Yasha’s voice rumbled through the air, breaking the silence. Darcy just shook her head and stood slowly, giving Jane a small smile, even if her heart was still racing.

Jane stood in shock, watching her friend stumble and flinch away from even the friendliest touch. Steve dropped a hand on Jane’s shoulder, giving her a small smile. “Maybe not sudden movements?” he suggested quietly, though he knew both Darcy and Bucky could hear him. Jane just nodded.

“Hey Darcy,” she smiled at her friend and held out a hand.

The younger woman dusted off her hands and looked at her old boss, looking so ill at ease. “Sorry, boss lady, I’m still working on my sea legs,” Darcy slipped her hand into Clint’s waiting one, and gave Jane the warmest smile she could muster.

“No,” Jane patted Steve’s hand on her shoulder and stepped forward. “I shouldn’t have rushed you.”

“S’ok,” Darcy took a tentative step forward, dropping Clint’s hand and slowly embracing her old friend. “It’s good to see you Janie.” She felt the tentative fingers slowly slip around her waist as Jane tested the waters. When Darcy didn’t flinch away, she fell into her friends embrace.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Jane sniffled into her neck.

“I’m back now,” Darcy ran her hands up and down her friends back and just let her cling, despite the heat from the sun making her sweat under the bulky sweatshirt, and the fact that she had to smell like she’d been bathing in sex and vomit. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I missed you so much,” the scientist whispered. “And then I saw your picture, when Steve and Bucky started looking for you, and it wasn’t really you and I was so sad, and now you’re here, and I’m rambling.”

“I missed you too,” Darcy whispered.

Thor walked slowly up to the embracing women, catching Darcy’s eye over Jane’s shoulder. With a teary smile, she welcomed his added bulk to their hug. “It warms my heart to see you again, Lady Darcy. We have been searching for you quite diligently,” Thor said over Jane’s shoulder. “Our shield brother James has been most distressed.”

“Thanks big guy,” she burrowed into their embrace, wishing it was all that easy. A quick hug, some warm words, and the past would just dissolve into their acceptance. “I missed you, too. So, how’s space?”

“Space is good,” he smiled down at her, and wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

Darcy was lead into a bunker like structure, which was surprisingly light and airy for an underground concreate facility. It was so far from the dank cold Hydra base that her shoulders started to relax as they walked past a wall of windows. Clint’s hand against the small of her back was a solid and reassuring weight. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a hole to the left of the elevators, but wasn’t close enough to read the small brass plaque that sat underneath. She just shrugged as she was guided into another office chair, around another table, holoscreens alight around the room.

The rumpled man who’d appeared on the jet’s holoscreens, his name sitting on the tip of Darcy’s tongue, and talked about medical testing, something she was very much not looking forward to, stood under the largest of the screens, smiling sadly at the room in general. The old Darcy would want nothing more than to give the sad man a hug, despite the fact that they didn’t know each other; now, she just sat quietly in her seat. 

“Ms. Lewis,” he nodded towards her, but didn’t come any closer, his entire body screaming of nervous tension and fear. Was he afraid of her? “I’m Dr. Bruce Banner.”

“I knew you looked familiar,” Darcy gasped. “I did not take your chemistry class at Culver.”

“No, you didn’t,” the older man chuckled darkly. “Sadly, that doesn’t make what I have to tell you any easier.” Dr. Banner took a deep breath, waiting for the team to sit down. “Ms. Lewis,” he started.

“Darcy, please,” she said in a small voice, almost surprised when he heard her.

“Darcy,” he corrected. “If you’d like, I can talk with you and Sargent Barnes alone, first.” Darcy looked over at Bucky, his face an unreadable mask, and shook her head. “As you like,” he turned on the holoscreen and bowed his head as they flickered to life. “The reason that they had to extract the fetus, it seems, is that your body was rejecting the pregnancy. From what I’ve read in the files that Tony sent me, it was because the fetus stopped developing. I could go into a long explanation about the way a woman’s body reacts during different stages of pregnancy, but the bottom line is, the baby stopped growing. Your body reacted as if the fetus had died, starting your body’s natural abortive processes. The thing is, because of the serum, the fetus was still viable, just no longer developing.” Darcy sat in utter silence, soaking in what the doctor was saying. If the baby wasn’t developing, then it couldn’t live, right? “Hydra took the baby at just over six months, which means that it wouldn’t have been able to survive outside of the womb without substantial help. They tried several different things, none of which worked. In the end, the fetus did not survive.” The silence in the room stung her skin, air forcing itself from her lungs. Somewhere deep inside she’d known, but hearing it out loud made it different. The room flickered and tilted around her, flickering then went out.

Bucky clutched at the table as his mind whirled. He’s spent the last two months furiously looking for his lover, the mother of his child and in just a few minutes, that child was ripped from his fingers. There was no baby. He felt like he couldn’t get enough air. No baby.

“Oh god,” Jane leapt to her feet and caught Darcy’s swaying shoulders before the other woman tipped over. “Darcy?” Her eyes had rolled up in her head and her body went limp, slipping down out of Jane’s grasp. Bucky was out of his chair, scooping up his Kitten in his arms before Clint could react. This was their loss; it was his job to take care of her, not the archers.

“Perhaps we should finish this in medical?” Bucky’s voice was little more than a growl. He hitched Darcy into his arms more securely, letting her head rest against his flesh shoulder.

“Yes,” the doctor nodded. “Of course.” Bruce looked over at the unconscious girl, sadness so palpable on his face that it was nearly tangible. Bucky just nodded and strode out the door.

He gently set Darcy down on an unoccupied bed, brushing some stray hairs off her face, tucking them behind her ear. He pulled a chair close to the side of the bed and leaned his head against the railing. Slow tears leaked down his cheeks as he listened to his lover’s breath, slow and faint. A sick hollow hole sucking at the center of his chest. Intellectually he knew that neither of them was emotionally stable enough to be parents, not separately and certainly not together, but just the possibility of having a child, the thought that something so precious and innocent would rely on him to survive, it felt like a salvation. It felt like the Universe was telling him he was savable, he could be a whole person again. But there was no salvation for the Winter Soldier, it seemed.

A nurse came in and took Darcy’s vitals, before exiting the room again without a word. Bucky tentatively took hold of his girl’s limp fingers, running his over the slight callouses on the pads of each finger, re-memorizing the feel of them while she slept.

Darcy’s eyes fluttered open, the blinding light piercing though her brain. She nearly skittered off the bed before she caught a glimpse of Natasha leaning casually against the doorframe. Instead, she leaned over the side of the bed and dry-heaved, having nothing in her stomach to bring up. The muscles jumped and flittered, stealing what breath she was able to suck in, before lurching again, bringing the taste of bile to the back of her throat.

Bucky’s metal arm wound around her waist before she tipped off the bed, his other hand rubbing up and down her back. “I’m sorry,” a sob caught in her throat as she leaned into the solid weight of the metal.

“Not your fault,” his hand never slowing on her back.

“It is,” she hiccupped. “I couldn’t keep it, I was killing it and now it’s gone.”

“Hydra did this,” Bucky insisted, pulling the sobbing girl back against his chest. His heart blooming when she turned in his arms and buried her face in his shoulder, her arms clutching around his waist.

“It was my body,” her muffled voice was barely audible.

“No, sweetheart,” Natasha said, taking the chair that Bucky’d abandoned. “Nothing, none of this is your fault.”

“I never wanted kids,” Darcy wiped her face against Bucky’s shoulder. “Now I’m being punished.” She let Bucky take all her weight, fuck keeping her distance. “But I wanted this one.” He tightened his arms around her, bracketing her body with his legs, as he curled entirely around her.

Natasha watched as silent tears slipped down Yasha’s face into the girls hair, watching his heart break for the shaking woman in his arms and the child they wouldn’t ever get to meet, the child neither of them knew they wanted until it was gone. She slowly stood up and walked out of the room, letting the door click shut behind her.

The Avengers stood assembled outside the door, broken looks on each of their faces. They’d brought the girl home, but they couldn’t save her from this. “Give them time,” Natasha said quietly, pushing them away from the room.

“Are they alright alone?” Clint asked, looking back at the closed door as Natasha pushed him around the corner to the waiting room.

“They’re mourning,” she nodded. “They need to do this alone.” Clint just nodded, slipping his arm around his partner’s shoulders, and letting her lead him down the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment on the way to the tissue box.


	9. Lock and Key

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On time, yep, I'm pretty happy about that, considering its been a crappy couple of days at work. We went live with a new program, that only half actually went live, and I've been using every ounce of energy to compensate for the half that didn't go up. It's sucked. At least our A/C is working again, cause its been like over 95 for the past five days.
> 
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 9: Lock and Key

Bucky woke curled up on the small uncomfortable medical bed completely alone. He rolled over catching his Kitten’s scent lingering against the bed clothes, but his bionic arm, that her body had warmed, was now hours cold. Bucky rubbed his hands down his face, scratching the scruff on his chin. He dropped his feet to the floor and noticed a white to go cup and a blueberry muffin on the night stand. He didn’t even need to open the lid to know what the cup held; it was black coffee, a single shot of espresso to strengthen the brew. He lifted the cup to his lips and allowed himself a small smile; Bucky knew exactly where to find his Kitten.

Bucky found her in the Avenger’s common room, a mug of coffee clutched tightly in her hands. The steam rose up into her face, curling around as she inhaled deeply, staring down into the cup with a sense of reverence.

He watched her carefully as he pulled a plate down from the cupboard, placing his muffin down and dusting crumbs off his hands. “She used to break protocol on long missions,” Bucky told Jane as she skirted around him to refresh her coffee. “She’d leave me to watch our mark and go find a coffee shop. The first time she did it I was frantic,” he pulled the lid off the to go cup, sniffing gently at the cold coffee. “I was terrified that she’d run and I’d be punished. It took me nearly an hour to find her, sitting in a tiny coffee shop, a latte and a chocolate scone on the table in front of her.”

“It’s good to know that even Hydra couldn’t program out Darcy’s coffee addiction,” Jane sipped her coffee and really looked at her friend. It was like time had stood still, maybe she sat up a little straighter, or she watched the room a little more diligently, but she laced her fingers around her mug the same way and tapped her foot to some unheard beat as she took long drags from her steaming cup. She could never wait until the coffee was cool enough, letting it burn her mouth just to get the dark liquid into her as quickly as she could.

Bucky nodded, pouring his cold coffee into a mug and sliding it into the microwave. “She’d come back with blueberry muffins and coffee after her little excursions,” the microwave beeped. “Assets weren’t supposed to feel, not even hunger.” The coffee was perfect, just the way he liked it. “My Kitten would only let it go for so long before she’d put her foot down and make me eat.”

“Darcy did that for me, too,” Jane looked at Bucky for what felt like the first time. His face was soft as he watched her friend. Soft and sad. Before that moment, she’d only seen the man who’d stolen her friend from her, now she saw the man who’d spent the last six years in love with that friend. If he loved her as much as Jane thought he did, as much as his face said he did, then he couldn’t be all bad. “She’d wave pop tarts in my face when I was in the lab for too long.”

“You both know I can hear you,” Darcy didn’t even turn around. Listening to Yasha telling Jane about her coffee runs brought tears to her eyes. She would slip back into their nest with the coffee in her hand. He’d give her a smile and pull her down into a deep kiss. Her heart pulled and broke all over again.

“Yes, dear,” Jane smirked into her coffee, unaware of the pain her friend was in.

“Good,” she slid her chair back and stood. “There are pop tarts that need eating, Janie. You’re too thin.” Darcy waved a plate in her old boss’s direction. “I’d forgotten how sugary sweet they are,” she mused as she left the room, her twin shadows following silently behind.

“She left me a muffin in the med bay,” Bucky took a long pull from the cooling coffee. “But she won’t talk to me.”

“Do you blame her?” Jane asked quietly. She might have seen the love shinning in the Soldier’s eyes, but with everything Darcy was dealing with, she wasn’t surprised that Darcy wasn’t ready to see it. She may never be.

“No,” the former Winter Soldier refilled his cup and went to leave the kitchen.

“Give her time.”

Bucky nodded. “Enjoy your pop tarts,” he disappeared down the hall, a heavy cloud following after him.

*****

Natasha put her hand on the touch pad outside Darcy’s quarters. “The door will open from this side with your hand print, but only open from the inside if you are accompanied by one of the Avengers, unfortunately. For the time being, Jane doesn’t count,” she watched as Darcy nodded a resigned look on the younger woman’s face.

“It’s exactly what we did for Bucky,” Steve gently rested his hand on the girl’s shoulder, noting how she forced herself to relax under his touch, before removing his hand again.

“Yeah, but Bucky had you,” Clint strolled into the room past the other soldier, finally really understanding why Bucky was so upset about Darcy’s set up.

“We already discussed this,” Natasha reminded her partner. “Jane and Thor aren’t here often enough to watch her in their quarters.”

“It’s okay, cowboy,” Darcy patted his arm as she walked deeper into her new living room, dropping heavily onto the couch. Her head was spinning at the number of changes that had hit her in the previous twenty four hours. “I don’t mind.”

“Jarvis is here if you need anything,” Steve sad down gingerly on the arm of the gray leather couch that dominated the living room. Darcy just tipped her head to the side, giving the Captain a funny look. “Right,” Steve blushed slightly. “Jarvis is the AI that runs the facility. He was designed by Tony, but he’s actually really great.”

“Thank you for saying so, Captain Rogers,” the soft British voice filtered down from the ceiling, causing Darcy to gasp, looking around for the voice.

“You get used to it,” Clint sunk down on the couch next to her. “It starts out feeling like you’re talking to yourself.” Steve watched as the archer draped his arm around the former Asset’s shoulder, nothing how Darcy leaned into the casual touch. “But after a while, Jarvis is a good friend to talk to when you need someone to talk to that won’t judge.”

“I enjoy our talks, Agent Barton,” the AI intoned though the speakers.

“Thanks, J,” the archer ducked his head and looked down at the girl tucked under his arm. She looked so much smaller than the domineering assassin who’d beaten him bloody only that morning. “The only problem is, I can’t get him to call me Clint.”

“It is simply a quirk of my programing, Agent Barton,” Darcy could almost feel the sarcasm coming from the dry replay.

The archer shrugged. “So, you’re never really alone.”

“Thanks,” Darcy looked down at her hands. “I think I just want to sleep now.”

“Sure thing,” Clint dropped a kiss onto the top of Darcy’s head as he stood and ushered Natasha and Steve out of the living room.

The Captain hesitating in the doorway, looking back at the young girl. “Are you okay to be alone?”

“I’ve been alone for the last six months,” Darcy shrugged, twisting her fingers around as she avoided the soldier’s gaze. “I don’t see how this is any different.”

She could feel the distress coming off of Clint, whose face fell at her remark. The Captain opened his mouth a couple of times before he finally settled on something to say. “But what you found out today,” he watched as the girl’s shoulders tensed. She’d been relaxed with Barton’s arm around her, but just Steve’s voice seemed to put her on edge.

“Captain,” Darcy rolled her shoulders and grabbed a throw pillow, bright purple, Jane had probably picked it out. “With all due respect, I’ve dealt with a lot on my own.” She sighed and willed her tears not to fall, Assets showed no emotion. “I dealt with my returning memories all alone, I dealt with the fact that, not only was my lover gone, but the man in my memories, who brutally raped me over and over again, wore his face. I faced the fact that my handlers told me my Yasha had never existed, entirely by myself, while hiding the fact that I was remembering.” Darcy angrily rubbed tears from her cheeks. “They took my baby and my memories returned, along with the faces of every person I murdered. And don’t think I’ve been sitting around for the past two months, I’ve been out on assignments, and I dealt with it on my own. Yasha might tell cute stories about coffee and muffins, but in reality, it was brutal and bloody.” She took a long breath, hating the feel of it shuddering in her chest. “So you’ll excuse me if I don’t see how this,” she gestured around the room, the three of them huddled in the entry way and her own position in the center of the living space. “Is in anyway different.”

“Because now you don’t have to be alone,” Natasha took a few steps away from the door, back towards the lost girl standing in the living room, a purple pillow clutched possessively in her arms.

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Darcy dropped back onto the couch. “But right now I do.” Clint pushed past Steve and dropped back onto the couch, gathering the girl into his arms, Natasha perched carefully on the other side. “I feel like I’ve just traded one cell for another.”

“It’s temporary,” Clint squeezed her shoulders. “And we can stay if you want.” Darcy just shook her head and gently pulled out of his embrace. “If you need us, Jarvis can get a hold of anyone at any time.”

Darcy nodded, hanging her head and shuffling over to the bedroom door. “Right, I just can’t go anywhere on my own.” She didn’t look back as she shut the door behind her. The lock engaged with an audible click in the silent room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feed the Author. Please.


	10. Distortion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, this is my third update (three updates, one for each story I didn't update last week) of the week. Next week, baring anymore crazy traffic, we'll go back to two updates a week.
> 
> Enjoy!

Kitten

Chapter 10: Distortion

Darcy woke to the sound of her own rapid breathing, the soft covers from her bed tangled around her legs, the pillows pushed hap hazard off the bed. She sucked in a breath and peered around the room, moonlight filtered through the heavy curtains casting long shadows across the room. This wasn’t her room, hers was pitch black, no windows to cast moonlit shadows. She scooted to the far side of the bed, letting out a muffled shout as she tipped over the side and landed in a heap on the carpeted floor.

“Ms. Lewis,” a voice came out of the darkness. “I am detecting signs of distress, would you like for me to inform the Captain?”

Darcy scrambled to her feet, tripping over the discarded bedclothes, falling against the wall. “Show yourself,” she hissed into the night.

“I apologies, Ms. Lewis,” the voice was calm and collected, causing Darcy’s agitation to ratchet up further. “I am not a corporal being, and as such, I cannot show myself. I have, on the other hand, expressed my concerns to Captain Rogers, who I believe is on his way to check on your wellbeing.”

Darcy pulled herself free of the tangled bedclothes and curled into the corner, which was the most defensible place in the room, a clear line of sight through the door and into the apartment’s living room. As her mind woke up and her heart rate slowed, she remembered her rescue. Her muscles relaxed and reluctantly, she pulled herself away from the wall. Dragging the bedsheets behind her, Darcy curled back up on the ridiculously comfortable king sized bed, and let herself drift off again. She was safe.

*****

Locks whirling to life in the next room alerted Darcy to the presence of another person, the sound of the door opening was too far away, but she dismissed that, as her still sleeping brain playing tricks. They were testing her. She kept her breathing deep and even, waiting for the presence to creep closer.

“She seems fine, Jarvis,” the voice was quiet and soft, trying to will her into a false sense of complacency.

“I assure you, Captain,” a British accent colored the response. It was just a test, she assured herself, they were trying to disorient her. “She was in deep distress just a few minutes ago.”

A hand dropped gently on her shoulder, shaking her. “Darcy,” the first voice called softly. She let out another breath slowly and then clamped her hand over the one on her shoulder, throwing her attacker over herself and pinning him down to the bed, straddling his chest. “Jarvis, lights,” the man called before Darcy could get her hands around his throat.

The sudden explosion of light blinded her for a moment and she clamped her eyes shut as they fought to adjust. She couldn’t understand why the man wasn’t pressing his advantage, but he just lay quietly beneath her. Slowly she opened her eyes and got her answer, Captain Steve Rogers lay underneath her, patiently waiting for her to let go of his neck, so he could breathe.

Darcy leapt off the Captain like she’d been burned and backed her way into the corner again, arms up to protect herself. “What the fuck are you doing in here?” she all but shouted.

“Jarvis called,” Steve rubbed his neck and gingerly slid off the bed, his hands up to show he was unarmed. “He said you were showing signs of agitation and distress, and asked that I come in and see if I could help.”

“So you sneak up on me in bed,” she could feel her heart rate increasing and her breathing coming in short pants.

“I just wanted to make sure you were alright,” he sat down at the corner of the bed, keeping his voice soft and level, like you would for a dangerous animal.

“I’m clearly anything but alright,” Darcy slid to the floor and tried to calm her breathing. “Get out.”

“Can I do anything?” the Captain stood and backed his way out of the room, looking pityingly at the woman huddled on the floor.

“Just get out,” she buried her head against her knees, feeling hot tears sting her eyes.

“I apologies, Ms. Lewis,” Jarvis said. “I feel I have made an error. Is there a way I can correct this mistake?”

“I’ll be alright, J,” her voice muffled by her legs as she willed her tears to stop. For two months as her memories returned, she’d kept her emotions in check, and now that she didn’t have to, it felt like they wouldn’t let her be. “It’s the middle of the night; I don’t want to bother anyone else.”

“Then I must inform you that the Captain has called Agents Romanoff and Barton.”

Darcy sighed and got up, wiping tears from her face and righting the sheets on her bed, before climbing back in, propping herself up on the pillows to await her forth coming visitors.

The click and whirl of the front door looks notified her to her guest’s arrival. “She slept just fine last night,” Clint’s voice carried through the apartment.

“She’s had a few shocks since then,” Natasha said, locking eyes with Darcy as she and Clint entered the bedroom.

“Some literal ones,” Darcy drawled.

“You alright, mladshaya sestra?” the Widow asked, sitting at the edge of the bed. Darcy just nodded and let her head fall back against the headboard, the tears slipping down her cheeks betraying the lie.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Clint sat down next to his partner and waited for Darcy to make the next move.

“If I may, Agent Barton,” Jarvis intervened. “Perhaps you might try to keep Ms. Lewis’ routine as close as possible to what she’s used to for the time being.”

Clint looked at Darcy for confirmation; her small shrug was probably the best he was going to get. “Okay,” he stood from the bed and adjusted the lone arm chair in the room to the far corner of the bed. “Would you please make sure to raise the lights to one hundred present at exactly six am?” He dropped down into the chair and propped his feet on the corner of the bed.

“I will add that to my program, sir,” the AI agreed.

Clint settled down in the chair, it wasn’t the worst place he’d ever slept, not by far. “Go to sleep, Darce,” he smiled fondly at the brunette. “We’ll be here if you need anything.” Natasha just nodded and patted the girl on the hand before disappearing through the doorway into the living room. “Jarvis, lights.” The lights went out and Darcy let herself once again be claimed by sleep.

Clint watched as nightmares shook the girl, flinching each time she cried out in her sleep. He was more than a little relieved when the lights came up at six and Darcy roused herself for the day. He dropped a kiss on her head and slipped from the room, confident that Natasha would take care of her.

Lucky greeted him at the door to his apartment and followed him to the bedroom. The old golden retriever was perfectly happy to crawl into bed with his mast, his big tail thumping happily against the mattress as Clint let sleep wash over him, a notion developing at the back of the archer’s mind. A smile formed on his lips as sleep over came him, Lucky warm and solid at his side.

*****

Darcy’s nightmares had been bloody and vivid, but the solid weight of the punching bag, the repetitive movements of her body, pushed the dripping carnage away from her mind. Natasha watched from the treadmill, pounding out miles in a vain attempt to shake off hours of missed sleep and month of jetlag. The Widow watched as the punching back rocked under the younger woman’s fists, her technique nearly as flawless as the Widow’s own, if not a little more violet.

Darcy stepped neatly away from the bag, letting it swing in jerky fits as she crossed the room to stretch. “Thanks for helping last night,” the girl’s voice barely carried over Natasha’s pounding feet.

“We all had an adjustment period to the outside world,” the Widow stepped off her machine and dropped down next to the girl, using the towel across her shoulders to mop sweat off her brow.

Darcy nodded. “I think I could use some coffee, now,” she deflected and stood, waiting for Natasha to follow her out, since she was required an escort everywhere. The other woman let the topic drop, and led the way to caffeine.

******

Clint stood outside Darcy’s rooms, his hand loosely through Lucky’s collar, hesitating before he knocked.

“I just realized,” Clint said as the door swung open. “That I know next to nothing about you.” Darcy tipped her head to the side, her eyes falling to the over excited dog at the archer’s side. “I have no idea if you eve like,” his words died in his throat as Darcy slid to her knees in front of the dog, burying her hands in his fur.

“Well, hello hansom,” she let the dog drag his tongue over her face. “What’s your name?”

“Never mind,” Clint chuckled and scratched the back of his neck. “This is Lucky, can we come in?” Darcy let a smile drift across her face as the golden retriever bounded through her door and settled on her couch. “It’s good to see you smile.” Clint kissed her cheek and joined the dog on the couch, flipping on the TV.

Darcy sat down on the other side of the couch, putting her feet up on the coffee table. She slid down low on the couch, and let Lucky nudge his head under her hand, demanding to be pet. “I’m like a million years behind on TV.”

“I think we can fix that,” the archer said as he flipped through channels. Lucky just huffed and did his best to curl his entire body onto Darcy’s lap. “I think he likes you.”

“He’s a sweet boy,” she scratched behind the dog’s ears. Clint just nodded and dropped the remote when he found a rerun of Dog Cops, watching Darcy and Lucky out of the corner of his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, please leave your comments in the box below.


	11. Doorways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, quick story. A few days ago, I was looking through new WinterShock fan fiction, because I finally caught up with all the stories that I subscribe to, and found a new story. I left a comment, and found out that the author reads my stuff too, which is always awesome. Long story short, this chapter is dedicated to ejdvdsn. And if you haven't checked out her story The Weak Link, you absolutely should run, not walk. You know, right after you read this chapter and leave me a nice comment.
> 
> Enjoy!

Kitten

Chapter 11: Doorways

The cold rough concrete bit into the bare bottoms of her feet as she stumbled down the endless hallway. The dingy walls sagged and strips of sickly green paint hung like wilting flowers. Each door she passed was locked tight; gut wrenching screams rattled the solid wood and rusted hinges. The worst were the ones she passed, where silence rang back, followed closely by the sound of broken sobbing.

Every noise made her heart jump; the end of the hall was lost in grungy gray darkness, there were no windows to the outside, only solid doors. The only illumination came from the occasional bare light bulb, casting harsh shadows that danced along the walls as the lights rocked back and forth. Darcy was caught between the urge to run and the need to curl up and hide. She knew what was behind the doors, even if she’d never dared to peek through their small metal slats. She knew each choking scream and every hopeless sob came from her own throat. She had this all-consuming terror of what might wait for her at the end of the hallway, and the knowledge of what horrors where laid bare behind each door. The wish to get away from her own tortured cries was unbearable.

As she stood frozen in place the door closest to her burst from its rusted hinges, littering the floor with shards of shattered wood. Yasha, a wild look on his face, was across the hall, metal fingers wrapping around her throat, before she could even think to run. She felt pathetic and small as his steely grey eyes bore into hers and he crushed her against the opposite wall, forcing the air from her lungs, burning up her constricted airway. He pushed her up the wall, forcing his hips between her dangling legs, when she finally forced a scream past the crushing metal of his fist.

A cold wet nose grounded Darcy as she woke screaming from her nightmare. Lucky lay curled into her side gently nudging her, and scooting his furry body as close to her as possible, small sad sounds whimpering from the back of the dog’s throat. She pushed herself up against the headboard, rubbing her eyes and letting the golden retriever situate himself fully in her lap.

“You okay, sestra?” Natasha set her hip to the open doorframe of Darcy’s bedroom, the Russian’s hair was unapologetically sleep tussled, leaving Darcy with a deep pang of guilt at pulling her friend out of bed, even if the other woman had been camped out on her couch. She and Clint took turns staying with Darcy. Clint didn’t sleep on the couch. But he also didn’t push anything, Darcy liked to cuddle, and when Clint wasn’t there, Lucky was a perfect, albeit furry, substitute.

“Yeah,” she buried her hands in to Lucky’s fur and tried to give the other woman a reassuring smile as the dog happily licked Darcy’s face. She almost preferred to cuddle with Lucky. He didn’t make her feel guilty, no matter how unintentional. “Lucky’s looking out for me.” The Widow nodded and disappeared back into the living room. Darcy listened to her friend resettle on the couch, as she slumped down into her own covers. Lucky huffed and laid his long snout on Darcy’s belly, enjoying his ear scratches as they both drifted back into the arms of Morpheus.

*****

An alarm clock replaced Jarvis’ directive to bring the lights up, two weeks after she arrived. Jane had given it to her, it was pink and covered in rhinestones, and Old Darcy would have loved it. Jane also gave her a brand new iPod, loaded up with all of Darcy’s music, and some stuff Jane thought she’d missed; she was slowly filtering through the five hundred hours of music, trying to find a connection with the noise that spilled out of her tiny white earbuds, again.

Darcy woke in her sun warmed bedroom, and hit the snooze, burrowing back under the covers with her favorite bedmate. Lucky was the only dog she’d ever met who slept under the covers with his head on a pillow. She absolutely blamed Clint, who was a pillow hog himself. She woke again more than an hour later to the scent of freshly brewed coffee, Natasha humming to herself in the kitchen.

“I missed you in the gym this morning,” the Widow smiled at the girl as she stumbled from her bedroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“I hit the snooze,” Darcy made grabby hands for the mug her friend had just poured. Natasha chuckled as she handed over the mug.

“And slept through Clint coming to get Lucky at seven, and turning off your alarm,” the Russian curled up on one of Darcy’s kitchen stools and peered at the girl over the rim of her cup. “You wanna talk about your nightmare?”

“I was in the hall, again,” she looked down into her coffee, breathing in the earthy scent. “Yasha,” Darcy choked out. “The soldier, he had his hand around my throat, just like,” she reached out instinctively for the comfort of Lucky’s fur, before she remembered Clint had him. She rubbed her hand against her flannel sleep pants and clenched her fist. “Lucky woke me.”

“He’s a good dog,” Natasha sipped her coffee, continuing to watch her friend. The look in her eyes told Darcy that the other woman had not missed her aborted comment. “You’re going to have to face what’s behind the doors, Darcy. You’re talking to Sam today?” The younger woman took a shuddering breath and nodded. “How did it feel to sleep in?” The Widow took another long drink from her rapidly cooling coffee, knowing not to push too hard about her friend’s nightmares.

“Almost as good as this coffee smells,” Darcy brought the cup up to her lips, enveloping her scenes in the dark aroma. She was forever grateful for Natasha enabling her habit. She secretly wondered if Yasha had told her that Darcy liked vanilla in her coffee, or if the Widow had scared up that information on her own.

“How about when I tell you that it’s been decided that we can disable the internal locks?” the Russian grinned into her mug.

“Really?” Darcy carefully put her mug down on the counter so she didn’t spill it, her hands were shaking.

“Really,” the older woman nodded. “Jarvis will still monitor you for a while, but you’re free to come and go as you please, within the boundaries of the facility.”

“Thank you for the coffee, Vdova,” she dropped off the stool and brushed a kiss against Natasha’s cheek before heading into her room to change.

*****

Darcy slid into the plush leather armchair that sat in the corner of Sam’s small office. It wasn’t conventional, but his personal knowledge and experience working with both Steve and Bucky, made him the most convenient choice. Plus, Darcy liked him, which made it much easier to talk to him.

“So,” Sam slumped down on his leather couch, a perfect match for Darcy’s chair, it was a bit of a reverse for a psychologist’s office, but the chair was in the most defensible positing, and Sam wasn’t a psychologist, as he liked to remind her often. “You wanna talk to me about your nightmare?”

“Not really,” just because she liked him, did not mean she made life easy on him.

Sam hummed and propped his feet up on the coffee table, hands clasped over his stomach, and gave her an appraising eye. “I’ll try this a different way,” a small smirk on his lips. “Tell me about the nightmare that caused those dark circles under your eyes, that even Pepper’s most expensive concealer couldn’t hide, or I’m going to let Tony break out those Hello Kitty dishes he may or may not have gotten to welcome you into the Avenger’s Family, and Bucky’s been trying to convince the idiot, is an inappropriate gift.”

“He didn’t,” Darcy slumped in her chair. “Of course he did, Tony would totally do that. At least there’s little to no chance of them exploding.” She huffed. Vaguely telling Natasha over coffee was one thing, but Sam made her think. “It’s the same hallway,” she twisted her fingers in her opposite hand, chewing on her bottom lip. “I know it’s me behind the doors, but I can’t look.” Darcy closed her eyes, not wanting to see her friends face when she continues. “Yasha burst through one of the doors and grabbed me. He wrapped his hand around my throat and pushed his way between my legs. I woke up screaming before anything else could happen.”

“Good,” Sam nodded, steepling his fingers on his stomach.

“Excuse me?” Darcy wasn’t sure how having a nightmare about Yasha choking her out and attempting to rape her was good.

“The hallway’s always been empty before,” her friend explained. “The fact that Bucky made an appearance means you’re making progress.”

“Yasha,” she corrected.

“Right,” Sam sighed, they’d been through this often. “I understand you have a need to make a distinction, compartmentalize the aspects of Bucky, but while a lot of the Winter Soldier’s actions weren’t Bucky’s choice, the underlying person, the one who you cared about and who has loved you for years, Bucky or Yasha, he’s the same person.” He watched Darcy nod, silent tears seeping down her cheeks. “I want you to do something for me,” Sam pulled himself up right and handed her a tissue, looking her in the eyes. “I want you to talk to him, it doesn’t have to be alone, we can do it here, or you can bring Natasha with you. It doesn’t even have to be about anything real, talk about the weather, coffee, doesn’t matter. But I want you two to talk.” He watched the girl pick at her nails, eyes cast towards the floor, after a minute she nodded. “Anything else you wanna talk about, exciting news you want ‘a share?”

“I hit the snooze button today,” Darcy let a small smile out, delighted at the full throated chuckle from Sam.

“Is that so?” he asked. “Not what I was fishing for, but that’s awesome. It’s great. Taking charge of your own routines is very important.”

*****

Darcy stood outside the apartment Bucky shared with Steve, two steaming cups of coffee in her hands, one cup of strong coffee with a single shot of espresso in it, the other a vanilla latte. She answered her knock, giving her a long hard look before stepping aside to let her in. “Bucky’s in his room, second door on the left.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Darcy said in a quiet voice.

Steve nodded. “I know,” he closed the door behind her, cognizant of the small jump the girl made when it clicked shut. “I know that this is all hard on you, but he’s my best friend, and he needs you. Loosing you and the baby, he’s dying inside, sweetheart.”

“No promises, Cap,” she let a tear slip from her eye and looked down at her shoes, twisting one foot around to step on the toes of the other. “But I brought coffee, so I could at least try.”

“Just,” Steve tipped her chin up to look at him. He almost never intentionally touched her, but he needed to look in her eyes. “Try hard.” Darcy nodded sharply, sniffling slightly before stepping back. “Second door on the left.”

The door was shut tight. A heavy wooden door that made her stomach flop. It wasn’t the same; she told herself harshly, Bucky wasn’t going to hurt her, not physically. She took a deep breath, screwed up her courage and stuffed down her fears. Back straight, she knocked on the door. 

“Not in the mood, Steve,” Bucky’s voice was muffled though the wood.

“Es’ not Steve,” Darcy forced out, doing her best to keep her voice steady.

The door was opened before she could blink. Bucky stood there in his doorway, gray sweats hanging low on his hips, a faded vintage Brooklyn Dodgers t-shirt hugging tight across his shoulders. “Darcy,” he breathed out, his blue eyes watery as he shoved hair off his face. She couldn’t remember his eyes ever being so blue.

“I brought coffee,” she held out the cup to him, putting it between them.

“Come in,” Bucky took the offered beverage, warmed when she didn’t flinch as their fingers brushed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave some plot bunny food in the box below.
> 
> Thank you!


	12. Running Wild

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I really had no intention of doing any writing today, but my husband wanted to take the little one over to see his mom, and there was nothing on the planet that was going to convince me to go with them, so I had an unexpected afternoon to myself, and here we are.
> 
> This ended up being much longer than I thought it would be, and kind of ended up in a place I wasn't entirely expecting, but here we are.
> 
> Enjoy!

Kitten

Chapter 12: Running Wild

“I’m sorry,” Yasha stood at the far end of the room, leaving the expanse of his bed between them, looking down at his folded hands.

“Sam and I have talked a lot about guilt,” Darcy told him, sitting down on the arm chair in his room, the exact same kind she had in her own. The one Clint slept in when she was having a particularly violent nightmare. “We talk about guilt and brainwashing, and how we may remember the actions, but they aren’t necessarily our own.”

“It’s a nice sentiment,” the soldier told her, taking a sip of the coffee she’d given him when she arrived, it was cold now, they’d spent nearly an hour just staring at each other, neither one of them really knowing what to say. “But you and I know that’s bullshit.”

“Clint and I talk about it, too,” she told him, looking up and watching as the perfect soldier, the man who had taught her how to hide her emotions, flinch as she mentioned the other man in her life. “You know what Loki did to him, right?”

“I raped you, often and brutally,” Yasha slumped against the windows on the far wall, letting gravity bring him to the ground. “Me, not some Hydra lackey, or the drugs or the brainwashing, I did that. I remember the feeling of your skin under my hands when I held you down and shoved my dick in your mouth and watched you choke on it, your lips turning purple while I fucked your face.”

Darcy held back a breath, waiting for him to finish, pushing away that particular memory and calling up another one. “You did,” she looked him in the eye, feeling his self-hatred from across the room. “I also remember you doing the same thing less than a year ago, and having me utterly enjoy the experience, and you rather enthusiastically returning the favor.” Granted the second memory was much less brutal, he’d been much gentler and she hadn’t woken up with deep bruises or an assassin curled up on the floor cowering from her with horror and what he’d done to her. “I raped and beat a man who has since become one of my best friends. He sleeps in my bed nearly every night and rubs my back when I wake up screaming.” Darcy fiddled with her coffee cup before setting it down on the floor. She’d once said that there was nothing that could possibly ruin a cup of coffee, she’d been wrong. “Look, you and I, we are fucked up in a way that no conventional psychologist would ever even hope to fix, but poor Sam’s trying. He asked that I talk to you, and he’s right, there is a lot of shit you and I have to hash out, not the least of which is our feelings.”

“What about Barton?” if they were hashing out feelings, Bucky was going to shoot the elephant in the room before it trampled him.

“What about Clint?” Darcy just tipped her head and looked at her former lover. “What’s he got to do with us?”

“You love him?” the soldier took a healthy sip of his disgustingly cold coffee trying to hide the bitter taste of those words as they rolled off his tongue. He didn’t take his eyes off his Kitten.

“Yasha, I’m not sleeping with Clint,” she rolled her eyes. “Okay, yes I am sleeping with him, but other than fucking him under the influence of the Chair, his dick hasn’t come anywhere near me, and even if it had, you don’t really have a right to say anything about it.”

“Your right,” Bucky felt what was left of his heart clench.

“Yasha,” Darcy sighed and wiped her palms on the fabric covering the arms of her chair, and shook her head, it was too soon to be going over all of this. “I really don’t know why I thought I could do this.” She stood and picked up her discarded cup. “I’m sorry.”

“Please,” he took the room in three long strides, and stopped himself from actually touching her, his hand hovering over her shoulder. “Please stay.”

“And what?” she asked, not turning. She didn’t want him to see the tears on her face. Darcy was so confused and conflicted. She loved Yasha, that was an indisputable fact. She’d think about their time together, the way he would smile at her during training, how his fingers would run through her hair with a reverence that could not be matched, how he would care for her and in turn let her care for him, and she would feel almost like a whole person. But Clint was real, he was an actual person from before this had all happened, and despite what she’d done to him, and the scars that would literally never fade, he was interested in her, and that made everything much more difficult.

Yasha’s hand hovered for a moment more, then dropped. “I don’t know,” he told her. “Can we start over?”

“What, with,” she wiped the tears off her face and plastered a wide smile on her face and turned, holding out her hand. “Hi I’m Darcy Lewis?”

“No,” Yasha pulled her to him, and tucked her under his chin when she didn’t protest. “Start over today, how about I start with, how are you feeling? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Lousy, actually,” Darcy said, letting her arms fall around his waist, letting the familiar feel of him under her hands ground her for a moment. “I feel very lost, and I can’t get the fact that our baby is gone out of my mind, everything since the moment Bruce said she was gone has felt wrong.”

“She?” Bucky moved them to the arm chair Darcy had been sitting in, pulling her down across his lap, letting her tuck her head against his metal shoulder, like she would after particularly hard missions. “I thought the records never assigned a sex.”

“They didn’t, it’s just a feeling,” she told him. “I just have this nagging feeling that Hydra’s fucking with us still.”

“Okay,” he nodded against her hair. “That’s something I can do something about.” He ran his fingers through her lose hair. She’d never left it loose for long before, but then she’d never had access to a real shower whenever she wanted, either. The strands were silky smooth and free of any grimy oil, and he itched to take them into his hand and weave them into a braid. “We’ll go talk to Steve and Tony, see what we can find, see what Hydra might be hiding.”

“I know Steve’s your best friend, Yasha,” Darcy nuzzled her head against his shoulder, feeling the ridge where metal met flesh with her forehead. “But he makes me uneasy.”

“He doesn’t mean to,” Steve watched her, he’d done the same to Bucky when he first arrived, like they were wild animals, and there was no telling what they might do at any moment. “He’ll settle eventually.”

“It’s not just the watching,” she shrugged. “He always has this guilty look on his face, like he knows more than he’s letting on.”

“He probably does,” Bucky pulled his fingers from her hair and sat them both up right, tipping her chin. “You want me to call Barton too?”

“Actually, I was angling for Tasha,” Darcy immediately missed the pull of his fingers against her scalp, but pushed down the urge to ask him to play with her hair. “Is that okay?”

“Anything you want, doll,” he helped her up and opened to door for her to proceed him. Steve had made himself scarce while they were talking, but Bucky knew he’d be just inside the door to his room listening, just in case one or both of them needed anything. “Hey punk,” he didn’t even raise his voice. “Meet us up in the War Room, bring Stark.”

*****

The Avengers stood in the War Room, every holoscreen alive with documents that had been retrieved from the raids on Hydra facilities while they were searching for Darcy, plus anything they’d found since.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Lewis,” Jarvis sounded truly sorry, or as sorry as artificial intelligence could possibly sound. “But I see no evidence that Hydra is holding a newborn at any of the facilities I currently have access to. That is not to say that they are not hiding the infant elsewhere.”

“Thank you Jarvis,” Darcy deflated into her high backed office chair, her movement causing it to spin slightly to the right before she stopped it with her foot.

“Was this just a hunch, Double D, or you got something you aren’t telling us?” Tony asked, clicking through feeds despite what Jarvis had just told them.

“Mostly a hunch,” she shrugged, ignoring the nick name, as she had learned was best when it came to dealing with the billionaire. To be honest, she kind of liked Tony, even when he was being a total dick. He didn’t handle her with kid gloves, and she appreciated that. 

“It is Hydra, though,” Bucky said. “Ain’t nothing they do straight forward.”

“Just because we haven’t found anything, doesn’t mean we’re going to stop looking, Buck,” Steve told his friend, his hand on the other man’s shoulder. Darcy wanted to roll her eyes at his riotous and determined look. His all American, can do attitude bugged her, and she wasn’t a hundred percent sure why. At least part of it stemmed from the fact that she blamed him just a little bit for taking Yasha away from her, which she knew was completely unfair. “We won’t stop looking until every last Hydra dirt bag is either dead or in custody.” At that she did roll her eyes. Fucking Captain America.

“Right,” Darcy pulled herself to her feet. “Well, we got nothing right now, so I’m going to go hit the gym. I gotta hit something, preferably hard.” She got up and walked out of the room, feeling Yasha following behind her. “You need something?” she asked, stopping in the middle of the hall, not bothering to turn around.

“Just making sure you’re alright,” he said quietly. “I know how you get when you’re all poised for a fight and nothing happens.”

“You’ve been on the receiving end of all that pent up energy, soldier,” Darcy rolled her shoulders, the tension in her muscles start to coalesce into something other than potential violence, the pit of her stomach feeling tight and warm. “Don’t you lecture me.”

“Just,” he sighed and tried to wrap his mind around what he wanted to say. “Go beat up the bag for a while, don’t do anything stupid cause you’re aiming for a fight or a fuck.”

“You wanna go a couple of rounds?” she knew it was the wrong thing to say, but she couldn’t keep the words from coming out of her mouth.

“No, Darcy,” Yasha turned her to look at him. “Just don’t,” he cursed himself under his breath. “Don’t mess with Barton, don’t do that to either of you.”

“If you don’t want to give a girl a hand, and Clint does, I’m not going to stop him,” Darcy shrugged his hand off of her.

“We both know it’s a bad idea, even if you and I are never anything ever again, don’t mess with his feelings until you’re sure you aren’t in love with me anymore,” he shrugged. “Just think about it.”

*****

Clint walked into the gym and watched as Darcy took apart a practice dummy. Her body flowed from one movement to the next in perfect rhythm to whatever music she had pumping though her headphones, the little white cord flapping and flying behind her back as her feet made solid contact with the padded wood. It looked like she was dancing, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He was more than a little surprised when she suddenly faltered, her hand missing contact with the extended arm of the dummy and her momentum carrying her forward until her head cracked against the wood and she stumbled to the floor. He rushed over as quickly as he could, a choking sob falling from her lips.

“You okay?” he pulled the headphones out of her ears as she startled. “Hey, hey, it’s just me.”

Darcy threw herself into Clint’s arms, and he could hear the music pumping through the tiny speakers, he pulled the cord until the end popped out of the music player, and the sound stopped. “Fuck,” she choked out. “It’s just a stupid song.” He wound his arms around her and settled them on the floor. “I used to really like it, you know, like way once upon a time.”

“It’s okay,” he rubbed his hand up and down her sweaty back, while her legs settled around his hips, her butt hitting the mats between his spread thighs. “Triggers are tricky; you never really know what’s going to set us off.”

“Yeah, but really, the songs called Chokechain, I should have been paying more attention,” she looked up at him, her fingers shaking, and slipped them up into his hair, his hand faltering on her back. Darcy looked up at him for a moment longer before using the hand in his hair to pull him down to her, their lips met for just a moment, before she locked her legs around him and pulled herself tight against him, snaking her tongue into his mouth.

It was just a moment before he reacted, pulling her against him and rolling them down onto the gym mat, his tongue meeting hers as he rolled her under him. He slowly ran his hands down her sides and back up into her hair before letting his lips wonder down the side of her jaw, nipping at her neck and relishing in the feel of her arching against him. Her sports bra held her breasts in tight, but he dipped his tongue into the cups, and bit down gently over her covered nipples before working his way down her stomach. He was just starting to pull at the waistband of her yoga pants when a hand in his hair stopped him. He looked up her body and stopped dead.

“We can’t do this,” Darcy’s face was red and flushed from both the workout and Clint’s ministrations. He just nodded and sat up, pulling her back into his arms carefully, the heat they’d nearly been pulled under by, gone. At least for the moment, he gently kissed her hair.

“Anything you want, baby girl,” Clint nodded, feeling her sag against him.

“I just,” she looked up at him and searched his face, but he just smiled down at her. “We can’t have sex.”

“Okay,” he tucked her head back under his chin and held on; he could still feel her shaking. “How about you hit the showers and I’ll get us some Thai?” Darcy looked at him skeptically, she’d literally just jumped him in the gym, and then stopped it before he actually got any action, no way the two of them spending time alone together right then was a good idea. “I’ll call at, she can chaperone if that makes you feel better.”

“Better make it Korean, then,” Darcy pulled herself out of his lap and stood, her legs a little wobbly. “Nat hates Thai.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Clint hugged her again. “Hey,” he tipped up her chin. “Nothing changes, you hear?”

“Right, cause this isn’t going to make anything awkward,” she pulled her discarded shirt off the gym floor and used it to wipe the sweat from her face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have.”

“Nope,” he spun her and pushed her out of the gym towards her rooms. “Nothing happened, we just got a little carried away, emotions are high, let’s just table anything we need to and have a nice dinner with Nat and Lucky, who by the way is probably pissed I kept him in my rooms last night and could really use some Darcy cuddle time, Nat will stay with you tonight if you want, and we’ll get back on track tomorrow.”

“Tell Lucky I expect him in exactly one hour,” Darcy smiled and kissed Clint on the cheek.

“Will do, babe.” She watched as he disappeared down the hall, before she let herself slip to the floor, hands over her face.

“Fuck,” Darcy banged her head on the wall. Yasha was right, she couldn’t just fall back on old habits, too many people were involved, and sex wasn’t going to fix all the tension that was crawling up her back. “Jarvis?”

“Yes, Ms. Lewis,” the AI said, his voice echoing down the empty hall.

“Please tell Clint that I’m going to ask Bucky and Steve to join us also,” she smacked her head against the wall one last time for good measure. Maybe she’d knock some sense into herself. Yasha had asked her if she loved Clint, and she did, he was a great friend, and she couldn’t fuck that up.

“Of course,” Jarvis agreed. She pulled herself up off the floor and started down the hall. “Would you like for me to send a message to Captain Rogers and Sargent Barnes as well, or will you be informing them of your invitation yourself?”

“Tell them we’re having Korean at my place in an hour, bring movie selections. Thanks, J.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope to be back to my normal update schedule next week, baring life interfering, as it is want to do. Please send me some love in the box below, so I can get those creative juices flowing. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who reads and comments and sends love, I really appreciate it, that's what keeps us writers going.


	13. Give and Take

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason this chapter was extremely difficult to write, and I had an entire other section that I'm saving for a later chapter. While I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with how this turned out, but I think it was an important turning point.
> 
> Update on my broken finger. It's still broken, but the finger nail has finally fallen off, so at least its getting better, sort of. Thank you to everyone who's sent me love and healing thoughts.
> 
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 13: Give and Take

Darcy curled up on her couch idly flicking through the channels, her wet hair making her t-shirt cling to her back and shoulders, turning the white shirt nearly translucent, but she couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. Her mind turned over and over what had happened in the gym, and what the hell she’d been thinking. It would have been so easy to just let herself go, so easy not to stop her friend from letting them both make a mistake, but Yasha had been right; she couldn’t just fall back on old habits. It had been one thing when it was just the two of them, their hearts already entangled together, but Clint didn’t deserve to be pulled into her mess, not until she knew what she really wanted, or at least what she didn’t want.

“Ms. Lewis,” Jarvis’ voice filtered over the noise of the television. Darcy just rolled her eyes up to the speakers that were expertly hidden in the ceiling panels. “Sargent Barnes is requesting permission to enter.” Darcy nodded, a wet tendril of hair slipping over her shoulder and brushing the hand holding the remote, leaving behind droplets of water. Yasha was early, probably on purpose.

“Let him in,” she said after a moment. She switched off the TV and tossed the remote onto the coffee table, the clatter it made breaking through the silence like shattering glass. Darcy could feel his blue eyes against the top of her head, his leather and metal scent coating the back of her throat as he stood silently just inside the door. “I’d a thought the army taught you to tell time, Yasha,” she said without turning.

“I was worried,” his boots thudded against the floor inside her front door. “Two hours ago you were off to the gym to kill a few heavy bags, now you got half the team coming over for dinner.”

“I suck,” she let her head fall back against the couch. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” Bucky slipped onto the couch and reached out, stopping himself before he actually touched her. “Can we pretend that we aren’t monstrously fucked up, and my brain isn’t Swiss cheese, and can I ask you a favor?”

“Anything,” he owed her everything. He let his hand rub along the back of the couch, needing to touch something.

“Will you brush my hair?” Darcy felt a tear trail down her cheek, trying to pretend it was a drop of water from her wet head, and not her pain splashing against her hand. “I just,” she flicked her eyes up toward the soldier, his crystal blue eyes holding so much hope. “It’s stupid, never mind.”

“No,” his fingers pushed the strand of hair dripping down her front, behind her ear and tipped up her chin. “I’d be happy to.” Bucky stood and walked over to her room like he’d been there a thousand times, and she just watched, guilt and affection waring within her, stirring her gut.

Bucky returned to the living room with her brush; also a pillow, which he dropped on the floor in front of the couch, and her towel that she had most likely left lying crumpled in a ball on her bed. “Sit down, doll,” he gently nudged her off the couch and onto the pillow, his jean clad thighs coming around to bracket her shoulders. “So,” he pulled her heavy, damp hair over one leg, her towel draped over to protect his pants.

“You were right,” Darcy sighed as he pulled the brush through the ends of her hair. “I was running high and I fucked up.”

“With Barton,” Bucky’s hands stilled in her hair, but he forced himself to keep going, this was progress, even if she didn’t choose him; she shouldn’t chose him. But she was talking to him, letting him comfort her, it was far more than he deserved. It was progress. “I thought he’d last longer.”

“I stopped,” she curled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “I shouldn’t,” the rhythmic pull of the brush through her hair made the tension in her shoulders relax by inches and she had to stop herself from laying her head against his leg. “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, and gone off when I was so keyed up.”

“We’ll find the truth,” he gently squeezed water from her hair, letting the loose strands fall through his fingers.

“And then what?” she asked, what would two assassins do with a baby? Darcy’s never been around kids, she hadn’t even wanted them, but the memory of her hands folded over her swollen belly, she knew she wanted the baby, wanted to be a mom. “Bucky,” he slowly twisted the damp strands of her hair into a tight French braid, careful not to catch it in the shifting plates of his left hand, pausing when she used his name. “I know she’s out there.”

“If she’s out there,” Bucky tied off the end of her braid, letting the drying hair curl over his fingers, letting the memories of thousands of times he’d done the same thing wash through him. “We’ll find her and bring her home, I promise.” He pulled her up onto the couch, and Darcy let him arrange her across his lap, her face buried into the crook of his neck.

“Do you remember the first time you brushed my hair?” Darcy closed her eyes and just let him hold her. Something had changed. She wasn’t sure if it was their talk earlier or his easy acceptance that their daughter was out there, or even if she’d just decided that letting him take care of her was okay, but her nightmare felt years away, and his arms where right there.

“Hmm,” he hummed against the top of her head, breathing in the familiar lavender and vanilla scent. “You’d been with me a month,” he rubbed his hand up and down her back. “Still wearing that shirt, it was beyond disgusting, but you wouldn’t take anything else I gave you,” he shook his head. He’d given her a wide birth after his first mission, after Hydra’s drugged him, after everything; he could barely look at her without wanting to curl up into himself. “If you were content, I wasn’t going to argue.” Darcy’s arms wound around his waist and she reached up to place a small kiss on the tip of his chin. His breath hitched. “You were trying so hard to pull one of my combs threw your tangled nest of hair.”

“I was so close to tears,” Darcy tucked her head under his chin, the weight of his head against hers, his arms loose around her, the world just fell away. “I was ripping my hair out in clumps and you just watching. I thought you were going to strain something you rolled your eyes so hard.”

“I didn’t think you saw that,” he confessed, not that he would have any memory of that moment until six years after the fact. “And I plopped a pillow down on the floor and held out my hand for the stupid comb,” Bucky could hear the door open and close, spying Natalia and Barton, hands full of take-out bags. “It took you an hour to finally give in,” he watched as the two spies dropped the bags on the counter, Barton’s dog held tightly in one hand. “I’m sorry, Darcy. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I am.”

“Remembering was hard,” Darcy ignored the sounds of her friends in the kitchen, pushing Lucky’s whines out of her mind. “I was so alone.”

“Not anymore, doll,” he rubbed his head against her hair as her fingers swept under the hem of his shirt, balling the material in her hands and holding on. “Now, I don’t know about you, but I smell bagogi.”

“Mm, and wet dog,” Lucky barked and Clint let him go. The old dog rounded the couch in record time and burrowed under Bucky’s arm to lick Darcy’s face. “Mm, slobbery kisses, my favorite.”

“Aw, Lucky,” Clint jumped over the back of the couch and took Darcy’s feet into his lap, pulling off her boots and kicking them under the coffee table. “So, Tash brought SWAT and Mission Impossible, both of which I vetoed.”

“You said she needed cheering up,” Natasha handed Darcy a beer, completely ignoring the fact that the girl was still cuddled up in Bucky’s lap. “Yasha?” she waggled a beer at him, but he shook his head. “I’m not handing Hawk boy anything until he washes his hands.” Clint just stuck his tongue out at his partner, digging his thumb into Darcy’s instep, making her groan.

“I’ll share with you,” the girl offered a sip of beer, which the archer gladly accepted. “Nat, I say no to both movies, next.”

“I didn’t bring any,” Bucky shrugged, moving Darcy around so she was sitting between the two men, her body still tucked under his arm.

“I brought the Lord of the Rings Trilogy,” Clint kept rubbing her foot, sliding down to prop his own feet up on the coffee table.

“Which I vetoed,” Nat called from the kitchen.

“Agreed,” Bucky grumbled. He’d seen them, didn’t need to see them again. 

“Then we’ll just have to wait for Steve to show up,” Darcy shrugged, tipping her beer again into Clint’s waiting mouth.

“Caps not coming,” the archer swallowed and watched as Natasha brought both Darcy and Bucky bowls of bagogi. “We ran into him in the hall, he didn’t think he would be welcome.”

“I invited him,” Darcy’s eyebrows furrowed together.

“He was listening in earlier,” the soldier told her, twisting her braid around his hand before pushing it out of the way so he could eat. “You said he makes you uneasy.”

“Oh,” Darcy sighed. “Then I guess I’ll just have to pick from my own collection, which is like three movies, all of which Jane has brought me.”

“No,” Clint and Natasha said together. They’d both been subjected to her movie collection since she’d been at the Facility. She had Mean Girls, The Notebook, and the Covenant. They’d watched Covenant twice out of desperation.

“You know what, SWATs not that bad a movie,” Clint said quietly. “It’ll cheer you right up.” Darcy just raised an eyebrow. “Okay, it won’t.”

“What’s wrong with Darcy’s movies?” Bucky asked, curiously looking at the three other people crowded onto Darcy’s small couch.

“You haven’t seen The Notebook have you?” Natasha just watched him for a reaction. He clearly hadn’t.

“Mean Girls isn’t that bad,” Clint sighed.

“Done,” Darcy jumped off the couch, narrowly missing tripping over Clint, who was still holding her foot. Natasha just sighed, and took a long drink of her beer. Too bad Clint was the only one who could get drunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments in the space below!
> 
> Up next, some communication of the TaserHawk variety, and Jane will make another appearance, as long as I can get her to cooperate.


	14. Comfort Level

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally meant to have this out yesterday, but I got home from work and was practically falling asleep standing up, so my husband sent me off to bed, without typing this up. So, I'm a day late, but much better rested; hopefully that means fewer spelling mistakes.
> 
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 14: Comfort Level

Darcy lay in bed, the lights low, with her head against Clint’s chest and Lucky curled up against her side. She idly ran her fingers through the dog’s fur as he snored softly, his snout on her belly. She sighed as she felt her bedmate start to relax into sleep; she’d been putting off this conversation longer than she should. Darcy took a deep breath and forced herself to speak. “Um, Clint?” his eyes fluttered and looked down at her, half laden blue eyes on the edge of sleep.

“What’s up, Darce?” he shuffled sleepily, pulling her closer into his side as he scooted down the bed to get comfortable against his pillow.

“I’m worried I’m not being fair to you,” Darcy set her chin on his chest, tilting her face up to look at him as he furrowed his brow, eyes slipping closed again.

“Bout what?” Clint pushed back to watch her better, forcing his heavy lids open, confusion written on his face.

“Yesterday,” she shrugged, looking down at where she was twisting her fingers into the hem of his soft grey t-shirt. “I was upset and keyed up, and I went all hot and cold on you, and I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

“Yesterday was yesterday, babe,” he huffed. “It’s over, I told you not to worry.”

“I worry,” she told him, watching as he woke up all the way, committing to this conversation she didn’t really want to have in the first place.

“Darcy,” Clint tipped her head up to look at him. “You got a lot going on in that brain of yours. I’m not gonna fault you for that, and I’m certainly not going to push you into something you’re not ready for, or you aren’t sure you want.” His eyes bore into hers; she could feel his exhaustion warring with his need for her to understand. She nodded and looked down again, her fingers brushing the hard planes of his stomach. She curled them back and tucked them under her own chin.

“I still,” she searched for the right way to say what she was thinking; wishing she hadn’t opened this particular can of worms. She could have just stuffed her mild discomfort into the back of her mind, and saved them both. “I feel like I’m using you, and you’re not getting anything out of it.”

“I’m helping my friend heal,” he ran his fingers through her hair, pulling her back down against his chest.

“Did Nat do this for you?” she asked, letting herself settle again, snuggling down between the archer and his dog. “After Loki? Did she sleep with you and rub your back when you had nightmares?”

“No,” he admitted. “Natasha isn’t exactly cuddly.” Darcy snorted, no the Black Widow wasn’t the most warm and fuzzy person she’d ever known. “She did sit with me, she had my back when no one else did.”

“But she didn’t turn her life upside down,” Darcy said.

“Baby,” Clint sighed and rubbed his hand over his face, his eyes stinging, begging for him to shut them. The need to let himself fall into REM curling inside of him, trying to pull him under. “I’m here for you cause you need a friend who is, Nat did it for me, now I’m passing it along. You ain’t using me, cause there’s nothing else I want from you, other than a few good night’s sleep, and a good friend.” Darcy tipped her head up and raised a brow. Clint didn’t even open his eyes, but chuckled anyway. “Okay, sex would be nice, I’m not gonna lie, but if you’re not ready or aren’t interested, then I can live without.”

“You know I’m interested,” Darcy mumbled. “Yesterday wouldn’t have even kind of happened if I wasn’t. You’re right though, I’m miles from ready.”

Clint pulled the blanket up over them. “If all I wanted was sex, I’d be at the bar picking someone up. I’m a big boy.”

“You sure I’m not stringing you along?”

“If you were, you wouldn’t be asking,” he tipped his head back with a jaw cracking yawn. “You’re not doing anything I’m not willing to let you.”

“So I am,” she pushed.

“I’m still kinda hoping for that blow job you owe me,” he pinched her side, pulling a shriek of laughter from her, as she wiggled feebly to get away from his fingers.

“You’re an ass,” Darcy smacked his chest and snuggled back down, rubbing her face against the join of his shoulder.

“I’m here until you don’t need me,” Clint rubbed his hands through her hair, scratching lightly at her scalp. “If you decide you want more from this, I’m game. If you decide you wanna figure things out with Barnes, I’ll be sad, but I’m not gonna turn my back on you just cause you chose someone else.”

“You’re too good to me,” Darcy curled her arms around his waist under the covers, even though it was a little too warm to cuddle up like that. “I love him, it’s crazy, I shouldn’t, but I do.”

“And I knew that going in,” he nodded his head. “Now can we sleep? Nat kicked my ass in training today, and unless you wanna give an old man a nice back rub, I really would like to pass out now.”

“You want me to rub your back?” Darcy pushed Lucky away, the dog grumbled, but scooted over to the other side of the bed. It was far too warm being squished between two furnaces.

“I rub your nasty feet,” Clint said reasonably, as Darcy sat up and tried to push him over.

“My feet are cute,” she pouted.

“True,” he went to pull her back down so they could settle again, not really expecting a back rub at half past midnight, when they’d both been up at six.

“Shirt off, Cowboy,” Darcy shoved his side. Clint shucked off his shirt, pulling it by the back of the neck, the way only boys seemed to do and dropped it on the floor. “Turn over.” He lay down and Darcy settled herself over his hips, not quite sitting down. She ghosted her hand down his back, letting her fingers wonder over the puncture scars down his back. “Clint.”

“Nope, closed subject, sweetheart,” he mumbled into his folded arms. “Now I need those pretty little fingers on me.”

“Sure thing, babe,” Darcy rubbed her hands together, warming them up and pushing the heels of her hands into his shoulder blades, feeling the knots in his back moving under her palms.

“Marry me,” Clint groaned as she dug her thumbs into the space between his shoulders.

“Oh Hawkboy,” Darcy laughed. “You don’t wanna be saddled with this mess.”

“With hands like yours,” he mumbled into his arms, letting out an almost dirty groan. “I’ll do just about anything.”

“Shut up,” she smiled down at her friend as he turned into a puddle under her ministrations. “It’s my turn to take care of you.” Clint’ soft snoring was her only answer. Darcy slipped back under the covers and curled up with Lucky, the archer’s presence a warm weight at her back.

*****

Clint slept straight through the alarm and through Darcy’s best efforts to shake him awake. He just mumbled and turned over, twice trapping Darcy beneath him. Lucky whined at his companion’s unrest and slipped off the bed and out of the room. Darcy shimmied out of Clint’s grip, sliding down the bed and pushing out of the ring of his embrace. She pulled her shirt back down from where it had ridden up and caught under her arms. She dropped off the end of the bed with a quiet thump and looked up to find an amused Natasha leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over her stomach.

“He’s an aggressive cuddler,” Darcy patted her hair down and rolled to her feet. “How long have you been standing there?”

Natasha shrugged and pushed off the door post. “I heard the alarm go off,” she said over her shoulder, making her way back into the kitchen.

“You could have helped,” the younger woman mumbled, running her fingers thought her hair and pulled it up into a messy bun with the hair tie around her wrist.

“You seemed to be doing just fine on your own,” the widow hid her smile behind her mug, watching her friend pull down her own mug and fill it with steaming coffee and sinking onto the couch, where Lucky sought her out like a heat seeking missile, crawling his large body into the girl’s lap.

“Yeah,” Darcy took a healthy sip of the scalding liquid, feeling it burn all the way down. “You just like watching me struggle.”

“Truth?” Nat asked, eyeing her friend. “I like that he’s comfortable enough to sleep that hard around you.”

“Oh Tash,” she put her mug down on the coffee table and folded her hands in front of her face. “You can’t make me that person.” Natasha gave her an eye brow raise. “I’m not able,” she stopped, and sighed, letting herself fall back against the couch, Lucky nosing his way under her chin. Darcy ran her fingers through his fur. “Don’t put that on me.”

“I’m not looking for you two to settle down, Kitty Cat,” the Widow smirked.

“I hate it when you call me that,” Darcy grumbled.

“You don’t,” her friend said over her coffee. “He needs someone close, someone who’s comfortable with hugs and cuddling.”

“And you can’t do that,” Darcy concluded.

“No,” Natasha agreed. “I sleep on the couch for a reason.” Darcy just donned and blew across the top of her cup. “Even if it’s just for now,” the Widow looked at the girl who had become one of her closest friends, who had captured her partner’s attention so many years ago. Regardless of the fact that Darcy didn’t think she was the same girl anymore. “Even if you’re only ever his friend. I think that’s better anyway. He could use a friend like you.”

“Thanks, sestra,” the former asset smiled at her friend. Life could be worse.

*****

The labs were on the other side of the campus from her apartment. Which was probably by design, she’d heard that Tony had a particular problem with blowing things up. It was better to have explosions away from residential areas, at least in Darcy’s humble opinion, and with her expertise in demolitions, she could trust her own opinion, even if no one else cared.

Darcy followed Jarvis’ instructions, bringing her to the glass walls that surrounded Jane’s lab. It was just as chaotic as she remembered, piles of papers and notebooks strewn all over trestle tables, equipment that looked like it was all being held together with duct tape and a prayer. She stood watching her former boss flit from one machine to another, writing down seemingly random numbers and equations on any piece of paper she could find. There where half-finished equations on an old white board, and once in a while Jane would go back to it and stare, only to wonder back to her computer and scroll through spread sheets. Darcy watched as Jane lost her pencil twice, and tripped over the extension cords that ran all over the lab floor half a dozen times, but her feet stayed rooted to the spot just to the left of the lab door, unable to go any further.

“You gonna stand in the door all day?” Steve asked, taking up space to her left, further from the door then Darcy was.

“Maybe,” she told him, looking up at the Captain. “Can’t decide if I should go in, or not.”

“I’m sure Dr. Foster would be thrilled to have you,” Steve studied the girl at his side, watching as her shoulders tensed further the longer he was there. He wasn’t sure if it was from his presence or the fact that she couldn’t work up the nerve to step through the door, but he bet it was more because of him than anything else.

“I just,” Darcy shrugged. “I’ve been taking a lot of big steps this week,” she shrugged again, looking up at Steve’s curious expression. “I talked to Bucky, and had people over for dinner and a movie; I even slept through my alarm. I haven’t slept past six since Hydra started pumping me full of serum, but I did it three times this week.”

“That’s great,” the Captain told her sincerely. “Every little step’s big at this point.”

“That’s what Sam says, too,” she smiled tightly. She still didn’t feel comfortable with Steve; just something about him rubbed her wrong. “He also said I shouldn’t push too much.”

“So take a beat,” he told her. “Go back to whatever you would normally do right now, and try again tomorrow.”

“You think?”

“No shame in not being ready,” Steve smiled down at her. He really wanted to see what Bucky saw in the girl, but just didn’t.

“Thanks, Cap,” Darcy squared her shoulders and stepped through the door. Jane turned at the sound of the door opening.

“Darcy,” the scientist brightened. “It’s so good to see you.” She held her arms open to her friend, letting Darcy come to her.

“Hey Janie,” she smiled, letting the tension melt from her shoulders and stepped into her friends arms. “I’ve missed you.”

“So,” Jane pulled her over to the lone battered couch. “Tell me how things are going.”

“And let you neglect your science,” Darcy laughed. “Never, why don’t you just tell me what we’re doing.” Jane smiled and launched into her newest findings. Darcy nodded along, letting her friend lead her around the lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Progress, right? Now, if only we could find the baby. And maybe get Darcy and Bucky to mend their broken relationship. Unless you're rooting for TaserHawk. We'll see what happens. At this point, Darcy is driving this ship, not me.
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting, and for being so patient with slow updates. I'm back down to just four stories, so updates should be a little faster.


	15. Coming Clean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm typing this up while also making dinner, and making sure the two year old doesn't fall over the back of the couch, and thinking, what the hell is my husband doing, cause he's definitely not helping. Yep, he's plugged into his computer watching the trailer for some Assassin's Creed movie. Sometimes being the mom is ridiculous.
> 
> Long story short, I'm a bit cranky, but the chapter is done, and ready for posting.
> 
> Enjoy!

Kitten

Chapter 15: Coming Clean

Darcy curled up on the tattered couch that she’d scooted into the far corner of Jane’s lab, and watched the scientist flit around the room, chatting happily about her research. Darcy carefully held her StarkPad in her lap and read over the information that Jarvis was feeding her. She was paging through hundreds of pages of inventory reports, from both Hydra and SHIELD, marking anything that she thought was suspicious. Dr. Banner was looking at medical files and science reports, but with the fall of SHIELD, it wasn’t surprising that Hydra would hide their priority projects even from themselves, and work was slow.

Darcy rubbed her eyes, feeling like there was sad imbedded behind the lids, and readjusting the tablet in her lap, her finger running over the screen, her eyes tracking over orders for raw materials and office supplies, and wanting to beat the tablet over her head, over and over again. She was not built for scanning reports, Hydra had built her for action, and destruction; not office work, and she’d never been known for her abundance of patience.

She tossed the offending StarkPad to the other end of the couch. Jane stood completely still as Darcy popped off the couch, the scientist traced her friend out of the corner of her eye.

“I’m going to the gym,” Darcy pulled the brand new messenger bag that Natasha had brought her back from one of her excursions into the outside world, a place Darcy was still not allowed to visit, not that she actually wanted to, and ignored the careful way her friend watched her. “Gotta burn some of this tension off before I explode.”

She watched her friend relax by inches. “Knock yourself out, Darce,” Jane blew out a long breath and turned back towards her white board. Darcy was very conscious of her friend putting her back towards her. She wanted to see it as a sign of trust, but suspected that it had never even occurred to Jane. “You coming back later?”

“We’ll see,” she watched her friend for another moment, taking in the messy lab and Jane’s tiny form in amongst the chaos, dry erase marker in her pocket, and pens in her hair. “Thanks for letting me hang out.”

“I’m just glad your home,” Jane trained a warm smile at her friend. Darcy just nodded, letting a small smile leak out the corner of her mouth as she shut the labs glass door. She liked that the lab doors where glass and transparent, the material alone calmed her, and the nature of the glass gave her good sight lines all the way down the hall. No triggers in Jane’s lab.

*****

Darcy slowly unwrapped her hands, sweat running down her brow and stinging her eyes. She looked on as one of Tony’s helpful little robots cleaned up the spilled sand from the heavy bag she’d split open. She carefully unhooked the bag and laid it off to the side to discard later.

“Your form looks good,” Bucky tucked his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants, hunching his shoulders as he watched her from across the room.

“Can’t get sloppy with all you super hero types lurking around,” she stuffed the tape into her gym bag. “Gotta be in top form to keep up with you all.”

“Not a hero, Darce,” he told her, shuffling closer and dropping down onto the benches that lined the wall.

“You helped save me,” Darcy sat down on the bench next to him, unlacing her shoes. “You believed me about our daughter, makes you a hero in my book.”

“Don’t feel like one,” Bucky turned on the bench, reaching for the end of her braid, but hesitating.

“Could you brush it for me?” she asked, watching his eyes trace down her hair, the fingers of his metal hand twitching to reach out. She pulled her bag into her lap and dug through for a moment. She found what she was searching for and handed it to him. “I asked Tony to make it for you, I hope that’s okay.”

Bucky pulled the thin leather glove over his hand and flexed his fingers. “No, it’s good,” he gently pulled the elastic out of the end of her braid and laced his fingers through the strands. “I like doing your hair.”

She leaned into his hands as he ran his fingers through the braid, carefully undoing the tight weave before using her brush to detangle the knots. Darcy slowly slid off the bench, letting him pull her hair over one leg as he smoothed the strands to a high shine. “I missed this,” her head lulled to one side, resting her cheek on the inside of his thigh.

“You want me to braid it again?” he asked, his fingers sifting through the mahogany strands, letting them filter through like dry water.

“No thanks,” Darcy shook her head, pulling her mind back from the dream like trance he’d lulled her into. “I’m gonna go wash it, soon as I can convince my legs to get up.” Bucky helped her to her feet, turning her to face him.

“I miss you,” he brushed an errant hair behind her ear, holding her face cupped in his hands. “I miss us.”

“I know,” she went to pull away. “I miss you too, Yasha.” She looked up into his deep blue eyes, a tear leaking from the corner of her own, blurring her vision for a moment.

“I miss holding you at night and waking up to your face in the morning,” Bucky’s breath ghosted across her lips. “I want that again, I’m trying to be patient and let you figure things out, but then I see Barton leave your apartment in the morning, and it feels like I can’t breathe.”

“I’m sorry,” Darcy wrapped her arms around his waist, running her fingers up and down his spine, the soft material of his t-shirt bunching up under her fingers. “Clint and Tasha, they’re just being good friends.”

“Clint wants you, I can see it in his eyes when he looks at you,” Bucky tipped his head down and rested his forehead against hers. “I feel like I’m losing you and like I never even had you. And I know I don’t deserve you at all.”

Darcy ran her thumbs under his eyes, collecting the tears that cling to his lashes. “I love you, Bucky,” she tipped her head up so her lips just brushed his. “I’m just not ready to lose myself in that love right now. I’d invite you to share my bed, but I don’t trust us.”

“But you trust the archer?” he asked and she could feel him shatter like glass under her fingers.

“If I took you to bed, I’d wake up in the middle of the night with your scent all around me,” her fingers hooked into the band of his sweats, tracing the dips in his skin just above the swell of his ass. “And I’m afraid I’d forget who I was.” Bucky just nodded and stepped out of the circle of her arms, and turned, his head bowed. He said nothing as he walked out of the gym.

Darcy slumped back on the bench and angrily whipped the tear tracks on her cheeks. She shoved her feet into her flats and grabbed her gym bag, her hair falling like water over her shoulder, making her breath hitch.

*****

The hallway stretched out in front of her, the flood dotted with the harsh light from the bare bulbs swinging in an unnatural breeze, making the shadows dance along the endless expanse of wooden doors. Far down the hall, nearly out of sight, a lone figure lingered in the middle of the hall.

Darcy stood completely still, watching the lights dance and weave, half convinced it was just a trick of the light, but no matter how the shadows moved, the figure stayed rooted to its spot. Slowly, her feet crept down the hall, almost against her will. As she walked, the screams started to die away, replaced by murmuring voices. The walls gradually hanged from the sickening industrial green to a clean white.

She stopped in the middle of the hall when she heard laughter behind the closest door. Her chest tightened as she listened to the sound of her own quiet laughter intermingled with Yasha’s deep chuckling.

Darcy’s hand lifted to pull back the metal slat when the figure at the end of the hall moved, drawing her attention. She watched as the figure shuffled across the hall and back. Her hand fell from the door and she continued down the hall. The harsh bare bulbs were replaced by globed fixtures, filtering the light evenly thought the hallway. The murmuring voices changed to low moans of pleasure, and sitting cross-legged in the middle of the hall was Clint, white Stetson hat tipped back on his head, a lazy smile sliding across his lips.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he leaned back on his hands, squinting just a bit as he looked up at her.

“You have?” she looked back down the hall, now brightly lit and clean, soft wood covering the concrete floors.

“There are more than just horrors you have locked away down here,” he pushed himself off the floor, standing up and brushing his hands off on his jeans. “I can show you if you’d like?” Clint reached his hand out and after a moment’s hesitation, Darcy took it.

*****

She sat up in bed, moonlight filtering through her curtains. Clint murmured in his sleep and turned over, his arm wrapping around her waist, rubbing his face into her side. Darcy fell back onto the pillows. Her heart thumping in her chest, her fingers going instinctively into her bedmates hair, scratching lightly at his scalp.

“You okay, Darce?” he slurred sleepily, his fingers rubbing sloppily into the skin of her stomach, where her shirt had ridden up.  
“Yeah, weird dream,” she scrubbed at her sleep infected eyes, blowing out a breath she’d been holding.

“Good weird or bad weird?” Clint asked, his eyes still closed, lashes soft against the skin of her waist.

“Don’t know,” Darcy told him honestly, still stroking lazily at his hair. “I was in in the hallway again, only it was bright and clean and you were there.”

“You open a door darling?” he sat up and looked down at her, not sure that this was a conversation to have snuggled up in bed in the middle of the night. They’d been having far too many of those lately.

“No, you were in the hall,” she tried to tug him back down against her, but he wouldn’t move and she wasn’t going to push it. “Just sitting in the middle of the hall, cowboy hat on your head,” she gestured to her own head, still laying cuddled into the blankets, looking up at him, his eyes fixed out into the distance. “Said you wanted to show me something. Then I woke up.”

“Weird,” he agreed.

“Yep, can we go back to sleep now?” Darcy tried tugging at him again, and this time he let her.

“Sure thing, babe,” Clint kissed her brow and tucked them back in. It was a long time before either of them relaxed back into sleep.

*****

Darcy kicked her feet up over one of the leather arms of her chair in Sam’s office. “So,” she eyed her friend, who had his elbows on his knees and his hands steepled under his chin. “What does it mean?”

“Your dream?” Sam looked over her, her body relaxed into the overstuffed chair, her hair loose over one arm while she kicked her legs idly over the other. “That you’re acknowledging the fact that you’re starting to heal, that you trust your friends to help you,” he shrugged. “Maybe that you’re ready to face the parts of your captivity that weren’t horrifying; maybe it’s time to start facing what was good.”

“But why Clint?” she asked, picking at one of her nails that had started to break. 

“Could be that he was with you last night,” her friend guessed, watching each little movement that she made. “It could have just as easily been Natasha or Bucky.” She raised a brow at him, but he just shrugged. “Or it could mean something else. Dreams are tricky.” He watched her go back to picking at her nail, nodding her head as she worried the uneven tip. “Is there something you want it to mean?”

“That’s the fifty million dollar question,” Darcy rubbed her fingernail against her jeans. “Isn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do we think? Is Darcy a little conflicted? No, never.
> 
> Thank you all for reading, I really appreciate it.


	16. We Used to be Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are now almost completely healthy in my house, which is a total blessing, because its been three long weeks of feeling pretty terrible, which sucks with a little one. Those of you with kids know what I mean. So we are back on a normal update schedule.
> 
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 16: We Used to be Friends

The tablet nearly dropped out of her numb fingers as her eyes fixated on the small words embedded in an order of a myriad of medical supplied. Two little words that made her heart stutter in her chest. Two words that could very well end months of searching.

“You alright, Kitty Cat?” Natasha leaned over her shoulder, plucking the computer from her friend’s fingers. “Zinc Oxide?” she asked, scrolling up and down to see if that was the only thing that Darcy had highlighted.

“Diaper rash cream,” the brunette said quietly, her body frozen in place, as if moving would cause her to shatter. “Zinc oxide is used as diaper cream.”

“True,” the Widow tapped at the screen and threw the inventory sheet up on the holoscreen. “Let’s not get excited until we’ve got more than something you can find in most first aid kits.” Darcy just nodded, her eyes still fixated on the place the tablet had just been. “We’ll find her, Kitty.” Darcy nodded again, tension spiraling along her shoulders until she felt like a coiled spring, ready to explode. Natasha pulled up dozens more reports, each flashing up on the holoscreens, and they combed through each one with a fine tooth that did nothing for Darcy’s tension levels. “Acetaminophen, five milliliter plastic syringes, amoxicillin,” Natasha highlighted each new thing they found, winding Darcy up further and further. “I’m going to call the team. We’re headed to Germany.”

Darcy stood on wobbly legs, her brain full of thick cotton as she stumbled numbly towards the door of the War Room. “We found her,” she whispered, running her hand over the plaque next to the elevators, the raised letters rubbing against the calloused pads of her fingers. She stared at her former lovers name and took a deep breath. “I’m gonna tell Bucky myself,” she said louder, pushing the words out like they were caught in taffy. She pressed her hand to the scanner inside the elevator, and watched the doors shut on Natasha, still rummaging through files.

Darcy didn’t even acknowledge Steve when he opened the door, pushing past him and making a bee line for the door at the end of the hall and barging right in. She shut the door without looking, turning the lock with an audible click.

“What’s wrong,” Bucky uncurled himself from his place on the bed, tossing his tablet aside. The heat in her eyes stopped him short. She stalked across the floor, neatly stepping over discarded clothes and books alike, like she had navigated it hundreds of times in the dark. She stopped directly in front of him and placed her hand flat on his chest, shoving him back onto the bed, and following him down, crawling up his body until she sat astride his hips. “Darcy?” he asked. She sank her hands into his hair, fishing the strands between her fingers and pulling him roughly into a fierce kiss, teeth clacking together in her haste to snake her tongue between his lips. She dominated his mouth, holding him in a painful grasp as she rocked against his lap, feeling the beginnings of his interest pressing into her thigh. Bucky ended the kiss, pushing at her shoulders until she relented and let him breath. “Darcy,” he watched her eyes flutter open, the crystal blue orbs hazy with need, a look he wasn’t unfamiliar with, but surprised to see so far removed from their Hydra prison. “Sweetheart, what happened?”

“Yasha,” she keened against his lips, her tongue running along his bottom lip, her fingers pulling at the hem of his shirt. “I need.”

“I know, doll,” he rubbed his nose gently along hers, his hands soothing up and down her spine. “Why do you need?”

“I found her,” Darcy whispered into his ear, catching the lob between her teeth and rolling into him, her fingers dipping below the waist band of his pants before he gently pulled them away.

“You found the baby,” Bucky asked, holding both of her hands in one of his. “Our daughter?” Darcy wiggled her wrists out of his hand and started to pull at his shirt. Revealing inches of his stomach to her fingers. “Darcy,” she was lost again, her hands running over his stomach muscles, mouthing along his jaw. “Doll,” he pushed her hands away from the button of his jeans and caught her face between his hands. “Kotehok.” Darcy froze at the name, her eyes starting to clear. She sat back on her heels and let his shirt drop back down. “Where is she, Darcy?”

“Germany,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands. “Outside Munich.” Darcy looked around, finally realizing where she was. “Oh god, Bucky,” she scooted off his lap, wiping her fingers against her jeans, not sure where to look. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged and scooted off the bed after her, pulling her into a hug. “No problem, doll,” he ran his hands down her sides and tipped her chin up so he could place a gentle kiss on her lips. “I’m just glad you came to me when you needed someone, not Barton.”

“Oh,” Darcy let him fold her against his chest, breathing in the warm leather scent of him and relaxing into his fingers that were rubbing up and down her spine under her loose t-shirt, feeling his skin sliding along hers felt so right. “I guess I did.”

“When do we head out?” he asked, reveling in the way she curled around him, letting him touch her. He let his hands wander down her back and along her waist, his fingertips just dipping below the band of her jeans, pushing into the hollows of her back, while he rubbed his chin into the crown of her head.

“Tash is calling the assemble,” she said quietly. “We should probably head out, too.”

“You wanna talk about what just happened?” Bucky pushed her back so he could see her face, a deep blush painting her cheeks.

“Just proves how not okay I am, how unstable I still am,” she shook her head quickly. “Let’s get our baby back,” Darcy buried her face back in his chest. “We’ll figure this out when she’s safe.” They stood there for a moment, just holding each other. “Thanks for not,” she stopped, not really knowing what to say. “You know, for not letting me take this too far.”

Bucky tipped her face up to look at him, his eyes soft and warm. “Darcy, I love you,” he told her. “If we’re ever together again, I want us both clear headed, I don’t want any lingering doubt.”

“No doubt, Bucky,” she nipped at his chin. “I came to you, I want you to touch me, it’s just good to know you won’t take advantage.”

“And the archer?” he asked, praying for the answer, but terrified it wouldn’t be what he wanted.

“Before Hydra,” Darcy shook her head. “Clint and I could have had something, I’ve been holding on to that.” She sat on the edge of the bed and started picking at a loose thread on her jeans. “Sam and I’ve been talking about it a lot. And doing that, I’ve hurt you and me and even though he keeps telling me I’m not, I’m gonna hurt Clint, too.” She pushed a deep breath out. “He saved me and took me in, when he didn’t have to, but I can’t love him. Not the me I am now, cause I lost my heart in a cold dank prison to a man who loves me, too.” Darcy looked up, tears shinning in her eyes. “All these memories swimming around in my head, the brightest ones are all of you.”

“The darkest, too,” Bucky sat down with her, pulling her against his side and watching her thread her fingers through his metal ones.

“I knew the difference,” she told him, running her thumb against his palm. “It took some time to sort out, but it’s true. I knew something was wrong when you’d come back after being away. I could see in your eyes that you were different.” He pulled her tighter against him as if he could shield her from that part of them. “I think that’s why I lasted, I knew that it wasn’t you in there when you’d hurt me, that the man who cared for me would be back if I could just hold on.”

“I couldn’t protect you,” Bucky whispered into her hair, almost too quiet for her to hear.

“I love you, Bucky,” she nuzzled under his chin for just a moment before pulling away. “Now let’s go get out daughter.”

“I love you, too,” he kissed her, his lips sliding along hers, sucking her full bottom lip into his mouth and running his tongue along the flesh. He smiled into the kiss as her fingers tripped up his spine and dug into the material of his t-shirt. “We’ll finish this later.”

“When we’re all home,” Darcy sighed.

*****

The air inside the Quinjet was thick with tension. Darcy could feel eyes running along her skin as she walked slowly up the ramp, forcefully pushing back her last trip up the ramp. She gripped tightly to Bucky’s metal fingers, glad she had a solid anchor in the here and now. Steve stood at the top of the ramp, his eyes locked on their joined hands, an unreadable look on his face. Bucky pulled her off to the side, he slid down the curved wall of the jet and guided her down between his splayed legs, tugging the elastic holding up her hair, and letting the brown curls cascade down his chest, and between his fingers.

“Strap in,” the Captain’s voice boomed from the top of the ramp, but Bucky ignored him. “Wheels up in five.” He stopped in front of Bucky, his eyes on Darcy. “Gotta strap in, Buck.”

“Let it go, Stevie,” the Soldier mumbled, his fingers working through Darcy’s hair.

“It’s SOP,” the Captain all but growled. “No special treatment.”

“Go fly the jet,” Bucky’s fingers stilled in her hair. “She has a hard time flying, this helps.”

“All the more reason to be safe,” he kept pushing. “Strap in, or get off.”

Bucky kissed Darcy’s hair and stood up behind her, taking comfort in her weight against his legs, however slight. “Steve, I’m asking you to let this go, walk away.” She watched the muscles on Bucky’s jaw jump as he stared down his friend.

“What, she comes with a few sweet words and you just forget the last few months?” Steve hissed. She knew he had to have been listening in while she was talking with Bucky. “All those nights you spent awake, the anger and tears I sat through with you. All gone cause she batted her lashes and spread her legs?”

“You apologize,” Bucky ground out, his eyes going stony and his fists clenching at his sides. “Apologize to Darcy and get your punk ass to the cock pit.”

Steve’s eyes flicked down to the girl curled at his friend’s feet. “Not a chance,” his voice like gravel. “She strung you along, fucked Barton, and then as soon as she found your child, she came crawling back to you. I’m not sorry for nothing.”

“Steve,” Natasha grabbed the back of the Captain’s uniform. “I think you’re gonna sit this one out.”

“Not your call,” he shrugged her off and stalked toward the front of the jet, only to be blocked by Clint and Thor.

“Gotta tell you, Cap,” the archer pulled his bow staff over his shoulder, flicking it into full extension. “Never thought I’d have to tell you this, but back down and take a breath, we’re running this Op without you.”

Steve looked around, meeting nothing but resistance. “She’s not worth it, Bucky.”

“Yeah, she is,” Bucky slipped back down the wall and pulled the stunned girl into his arms. “You cool down; we’ll talk about this little hissy fit when we get back.”

“You’re making a mistake,” the Captain swung his shield over his back and let it clang against the magnetic holster as he stalked down the ramp.

“No,” Bucky muttered against Darcy’s head, rubbing his chin against her as he held her tight in his arms. “I think you’re the one on the wrong side of this, punk.” He watched his friend disappear with sad eyes.

Natasha waited for the Captain to get clear, and raised the ramp. “You okay, Kitty Cat?” Darcy just stared dumbly at the closed hatch. “He’s just upset, Darce, don’t let it get to you.”

“I knew he didn’t like me,” she said quietly. “But that.”

“Was completely uncalled for, doll,” Bucky finished for her, caging her with his arms and legs, like he could protect her from Steve’s words.

“No, I deserved it,” she swallowed. “I just didn’t expect such venomous from Captain America.”

“He had no right to say any of that to you,” Clint dropped his gear and a second bag next to Bucky. “You did nothing wrong.”

“I strung you along,” she looked up at the archer, who cocked his brow at her. “I know, we’re friends, you’re just paying it forward, anything else is bonus.”

“And now you’ve made your decision, and that’s cool,” Clint told her, crouching down to look her in the eye. “I’ll miss the cuddling, you’re an ace snuggle bear.” Darcy couldn’t contain the bubbling laughter that crawled up her throat. “There was no fucking, though; you gotta know that, man.”

“I know,” Bucky held out his hand to the other man, clasping his arm. “You’re a good friend, thank you for helping my girl.”

“No problem, just paying a debt,” the archer winked playfully at Darcy. “Nothing that wasn’t paid to me, once upon a time.”

“Go fly the plane, bird boy” Darcy muttered, turning her face into Bucky. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he threw her a mock salute and pulled Natasha after him.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Bucky whispered.

Darcy nodded. “Just words, Buck. I’m so sorry he’s so angry.”

“Nothing for you to be sorry about,” he wrapped her up in his arms as tightly as he could. “I’m sorry about Steve.”

“Don’t you apologize for him,” she laid her head against the cool metal of his arm, the security of him surrounding her made her feel right for the first time in a long time. Everything else could wait until they found the missing piece of their family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know many of you were rooting for a threesome, but I feel that Clint never really had a chance. Which I am sorry for, I do love my archer, but Bucky deserved the girl. That is not to say that this fic is over, far from. There is still much to hash out, and a baby to find.
> 
> Please leave a donation in the box below.


	17. Air Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're gearing up for a bit of a run and gun, but not just yet, a couple of things to resolve first.
> 
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 17: Air Time

Darcy continued to buzz with unspent energy as the Avenger’s Quinjet took off from the upstate base, the loose feeling of Yasha’s fingers in her hair helped ground her as he braided and re-braided her hair, distracting her from their assent. Take off was always the worst part of any flight for her, the thought of that much metal and weight fighting against gravity to climb up into the air, made her stomach tie in knots. As Hydra’s Asset, she’d been punished viciously for that fear until Yasha found a way to help her through, assets did not feel fear. Darcy wasn’t an asset anymore. She leaned back into the Soldier’s embrace and let the warm scent of leather and gun metal surround her. Not that she’d embraced it, made her choice, just his nearness made her warm. If she was really honest with herself, that feeling had always been there, she’d just pushed it away.

 

“Feeling better?” Yasha’s voice rumbled through her, his arms loose around her, lightly caging her in with his body.  
“Much,” she tipped her head up and nipped his chin; her whole face broke into a smile as his light up. “Thank you, Yasha.”

“Nothing to thank me for, doll,” her curled his arms tighter around her. “He shouldn’t have said those things, his mama would have tanned his hide, she heard him say such trash to a dame like you.”

“He’s your best friend,” Darcy tucked her head under his chin, curling up in the cocoon his body made around her, like the rest of the world didn’t have to exist. “He’s just looking out for you.” Bucky just grunted. “Don’t stay mad at him, not when he’s right.”

“Steve was out of line,” the Soldier told her, drawing her as close to his chest as was humanly possible, like he could shield her from his best friend’s hurtful words, even if he was gone. “And nothing he said was right.”

“I hurt you,” she mumbled into the thick fabric and leather of his tactical suit. “I pushed you away and avoided you, and I shouldn’t have, you came for me, you found me when no one else was even looking anymore, and I let my need to lick my wound blind me from your pain.”

“Darcy,” Yasha tipped her chin up to look at him, holding it firmly in one hand. “I want you to listen closely, cause I’m not interested in having to repeat myself.” Darcy nodded her head, just a little as he held her chin tight. “I love you, I have since before I was me again, but it never stopped,” he took a deep breath, looking down into her shining ocean blue eyes and felt his heart clench. “I hurt you in ways that no woman should ever have to forgive and yet you still put your trust in me, you still love me. Now, I’m gonna protect that love with everything I have, you and our baby, you’re my world, my family, and Steve’s gonna have to accept that.” A small tear dropped from her eye, Darcy ducked her head and rubbed her face against the front of his suit. “Whatever issues Steve’s got with you, I will take care of, and he should have never let his mouth run the way he did. Clint and Natalia will tell you the same thing.”

“Doesn’t take away the hurt I caused,” she told him, her face smushed into the warm leather. “But thank you.”

“We both caused hurt,” he wound his arms tight around her and let his head fall against the metal wall of the jet. “We get our daughter back, then we’ll all heal together, khorosho?” (Okay)

“Ya ponimayu, Yasha,” (I understand, Yasha) Darcy said in a small voice. The two of them lapsed into silence, lulled by the hum of the jet’s engines.

*****

Darcy uncurled from her spot on the floor, the left side of her butt numb from sitting on the hard metal color. Bucky shifted at the loss of her warmth, but like a good soldier, he slept when and where he could. Clint and Natasha sat quietly in the cock pit, the former Russian assassin’s feet up on the dash, having settled into their five hour flight to Munich.

“Sestra,” (sister) Darcy leaned against the arm rest of Natasha’s seat. “Ya mogu imet moment s mashim yastreb?” (Can I have a moment with our hawk)

“Koechno,” (of course) Natasha dropped her feet to the floor and rolled out of her seat with more grace than Darcy thought she’d ever be able to muster. The Russian dropped a kiss against the other girl’s hair and melted away.

“Are we speaking Russian now?” Clint asked, lacing his hands behind his head ad leaning back.

“Well, four out of the six of us speak it,” Darcy shrugged. “And the two that don’t are both sleeping.”

“Looks like your soldier’s out for the count, too,” he glanced over his shoulder, both Bucky and Natasha were curled up, their heads resting on their go back, which couldn’t be comfortable, the archer knew how many weapons that the Widow had with her, he could only imagine that Bucky had a similar arsenal in his pack.

“We okay?” Darcy sat gingerly in Natasha’s abandoned seat. Clint just coked his head to one side. “I mean, I’ve been essentially stringing you along for like six months. You’ve turned your life upside down to move into my space and take care of me,” she heaved a big sigh. “And other than a few kisses and some very wonderful cuddling, you’ve practically been a monk, and now I’m changing everything.” She peered up at the Hawk through her lashes, his face open and calm, hands still laced behind his head. “But this morning with Bucky, there was no hesitation and no thought; it just felt right to go to him.” Darcy twisted her fingers together. “But you’re my best friend and I feel like I should apologize.”

“Babe,” the archer grabbed her hands and pulled her out of her seat and patted his lap. She lifted a brow. “Sit, Darce, some very platonic cuddling is totally needed right now.” After another moment’s hesitation she sat across his legs, dropping one arm around his shoulders. “We’re okay, more than,” he tipped her face up to look at him. “I told you, no harm no foul. I kinda knew this day was coming, Bucky needs you.” Darcy nodded. “Nothing with us changes. I’m here if you need, cause you’re the cuddliest best friend I’ve got, and my dog kind of loves you.”

“I love Lucky, too,” Darcy smiled. “I love you, too, Hawk,” she kissed his cheek and laid her head on his shoulder.

“Ya lyublyu tebya, malyshka,” (I love you, little one) Clint closed his eyes, confident that Jarvis would let him know if he was needed.

“How much time to we have?” Darcy mumbled into his neck.

“Couple hours,” he said, tightening his arm around her back so she didn’t slip. “Get some sleep while you can.”

*****

Clint shook her away almost as soon as she fell asleep. Six months out of Hydra’s tender mercies, and while most other conditioning had stuck, her sleep patterns had definitely reverted back from Asset to college student. She jerked and blinked awake, her eyes peering owlishly around her.

“Hey sleepy head,” the archer murmured. “Wheels down in ten.”

“Coffee?” a yawn cracked her jaw as she stretched and slid out of Clint’s lap, her feet connecting with the floor with a jolt.

“Sorry, babe,” he took up the controls, maneuvering the Quinjet to an open field near the quadrants Jarvis had supplied for the facility. “But I’m sure some Hydra dicks shooting at us’ll get your blood pumping.”

“You’re hilarious,” she shook her head and walked over to where Bucky stood. “Yasha,” she lifted her face up to him, accepting a light kiss against her lips.

“You have a nice nap with Barton?” he asked, his voice light, but it made Darcy stomach tight, worried that she’d made a miss step.

“He’s my friend,” Darcy folded her arms under her breasts, defending herself.

“I know, moya lubov,” (my love) Bucky yanked at her braid. “We’ll find a new rhythm, I was just a little shocked to wake up to Natalia’s shining scowl and see you curled up with the Hawk.”

She shrugged. “We talked, we both needed cuddles,” Bucky just nodded and pulled her tactical jacket out of her go bag and held it out for her to slip on. “No more sleep over, though.”

“I trust you,” he handed a strap around her waist for her to buckle. “I didn’t intend to start and argument.”

“Noted,” Darcy brushed her braid over the opposite shoulder and buckled the straps on her front as Bucky dug though her bag to pull out her weaponry. A shiver went through her as he handed her a Glock 26, butt first. She looked down at the gun for a moment, its specs flashed through her mind, along with the feel of it when her hand held it as she squeezed the trigger, the gun’s buck as it fired. Darcy slid the gun into its waiting holster, and pushed all of those thoughts away.

“You gonna be okay, doll?” the Soldier asked, handing her a second gun.

“I’m fine, Yasha,” she jammed the gun into its holster and held out her hand for her throwing knives.

“The first time back for me,” Bucky shook his head to dislodge the memories. “It was hard to keep the Asset in check.”

“We’re going to get our daughter back,” she checked the draw on her guns and sat down to re-lace her boots. “I’ve got a firm and clear objective, I’ll be fine.”

“I did, too,” he told her, his fingers tripping down her braid. Darcy tipped her head up and cocked a brow. “My first mission was the beginning of my two month crusade to find you.”

“Oh,” Darcy reached out and took his hand, the metal fingers stilling under hers. “Let me help.” Her fingers worked over his suit with practiced ease, the two of them twisting and shifting around each other as if it were a dance. Finally, he knelt at her feet and closed his eyes as her fingers carded through his hair, pulling it gently into a tight braid.

“We’ll find her,” Bucky stood and his hands onto her shoulders, she gave him a small nod.

“I know,” she rocked a bit as the jet landed.

“All right, kids,” Tony said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s get in and out with as little noise as possible,” he was still standing in his UnderArmor shirt and pants, not a stitch of his suit to be seen. “Jarvis, you take point on the security systems.”

“Are you not to join the battle to save the Lady Darcy’s child man of iron?” Thor boomed, Mjolnir sitting expectant at his feet.

“Actually, I thought we’d leave this one to Assassin’s Creed,” he propped a hand on Thor’s shoulder. “You and I don’t exactly do subtle.”

“So true,” Natasha rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall, waiting for Clint to release the ramp.

“I’ll run comms from here,” Tony agreed, pulling up a heads-up display showing each of their positions. “Two teams, the Soldier and the Cat, and the Spider and the flying rat.”

“You’re an ass,” Clint muttered under his breath snapping his bow into full extension.

“At least I’m not a wingless bird,” Tony slid a headset over his head and plopped down into a rollie chair he’d gotten from god knows where. “Let’s lock and load, kiddies.”

Bucky dropped a comm into Darcy hand, and she fitted it into her hear. “You ready, kukla?” (Baby doll)

“Let’s do this, Soldat,” (Soldier) Darcy grinned up at her partner. Clint pressed the button to release the ramp and the four assassins melted into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Please leave a comment in the box below.


	18. Dangerous Type

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, hold onto your hats, we got a lot of translations in this chapter.
> 
> And two whole days early!
> 
> Yes!
> 
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 18: Dangerous Type

Bucky and Clint quickly found perches, covering the two girls as they flitted through the darkness towards the entrance of the base. Darcy barely registered the bark of the Soldier’s rifle, but watched as the sentry tumbled silently to the ground. She trusted her Yasha to watch her back. An arrow flew by the Widow, imbedding in a second sentry who fell a little less quietly, his strangled shout calling more guards to the front of the building. Natasha and Darcy dashed behind a truck as bullets sprayed along the drive.

“Maybe we should stick to bullets, Hawk,” Yasha’s voice growled over the coms.

“Less style,” Clint chuckled and loosed another arrow taking out another guard who was sneaking up on Natasha’s location. “I like my bow.”

“You heard Ironman,” the Soldier growled, laying down a spray of gun fire as the girl’s slipped past the truck and sliding up to the door. “Quick and quiet, don’t wanna tip anyone off that we’re here.”

“Then might I suggest radio silence, boys,” Natasha purred through their ears, the door lock clicking open when she swiped the fallen guards key card. “We’re in anyway.” She slipped the card into her pocket and did a quick glance down the hall. “We’re clear, Kitty cat.”

The four slid down the dimly lit hall, checking each door. The hall dead ended to the left and suddenly the hall was full of Hydra. Natasha ran and slid along the floor in front of Darcy, throwing a couple of shock disks at the second guard while Darcy wrapped her legs around the first one’s neck, while his back was still turned, twisting her body weight around to pull him to the ground, slamming his head with her heel as she passed. Her momentum carried her down the hall, a knife slipped inter her hand as she watched her friend kick the next guard into her, and the former asset slid the blade neatly through the man’s neck, stepping out of the arc of blood that spurted from the severed artery.

“It’s a little freaky how in sync they are,” Clint whispered, his voice clear through the coms, an arrow knocked and drawn back to half his firing distance as the two soldiers watched the women take out two guards at once with their thighs.

“Well, I did train them both,” Bucky shrugged, his Sig Saur trained down the hall covering the girls, that clearly didn’t need it. “So there’s that.”

Darcy gave Yasha a jaunty one fingered salute before sliding thought the last guards legs as he grabbed for her, jabbing one of Nat’s pain sticks up between his legs. The guard crumpled to the ground with little noise. Clint neatly stepped over each fallen man, and stripped them of weapons; Bucky put neat holes in their heads as he passed behind. Reloading his gun as they followed the girls down the hall.

“I can hear you, Yasha,” Darcy rolled around the next corner, pulling herself cleanly up to her feet in the empty hallway. “Nat and I train together.”

“What do you think we do in the gym every morning?” Nat finished, slipping her batons back into their holders and fishing out the stolen key card.

“I can only imagine,” was Tony’s lecherous response, making all four assassin’s roll their eyes.

“You’re gross,” Darcy upholstered a Glock 26 and pointed it down the hall away from Bucky and Clint. “And I thought we were maintaining radio silence.”

“Right,” the billionaire chucked. “Just thought you’d like to know Jarvis says this is your stop.”

“Thanks, dude,” Darcy took a deep breath and caught Bucky’s eyes and felt him take the same cleansing breath. “Let’s finish this.”

Natasha swiped the card through the slot next to the door. Darcy could feel her heart skip as the light turned green and the lock clicked. Bucky laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. Natasha and Clint took the door, a single arrow loosing through the doorway. A dull thud preceded a baby’s startled cry. 

Darcy dashed through the door, taking in the large room set up as a nursery. Her legs carried her over to a crib, pulling the small bundle from the bed and holding her close to her chest. “Shh, little one,” she bounced and rocked, not hearing anything but the whimpering cries from the blue eyed bundle in her arms.

A small boy launched from behind another bed, kicking his small legs out at Natasha, who blocked each sharp jab, trying to catch the child’s small fists without hurting him. A small girl curled close around the bedpost, large racking sobs shaking her small frame.

“Prival,” (Halt) Bucky bellowed, effectively freezing the entire room. The boy turned slowly falling into parade rest, blocking the girl from the room.

“Zimniy Soldat,” (Winter Soldier) the boy whispered under his breath. “Zhdu vashikh insteuksiy, ser.” (Waiting your instructions, sir.)

“Otboy, synok,” (Stand down, son.) Bucky moved between the boy and Natasha, his arm around Darcy with the baby cradled in her arms. “Kak tvoye inya?” (What’s your name?)

“Ya nomer odin, ser. Ya pochti shest’ let,” (I am number one, sir. I am almost six.) the boy barked out, his eyes solid on the far wall past the adults.

“Oh god, Bucky,” Darcy passed the small baby over to Natasha, feeling unsteady. She’s anticipated finding her baby girl; she hadn’t expected any other children. Looking at the boy’s curly brown hair and ocean blue eyes, there was no doubt in her mind he was hers. Added to that, he had a sweet little cleft in his chin and his cheeky dimples were almost hidden by his blank expression, the boy was almost certainly theirs. “He’s almost six, he must be,” her vision swam as tears bloomed in her eyes; she swayed getting a small glimpse of the little girl hidden behind her boy.

“He’s probably the product of the first time I raped you,” Bucky tried to pull away, but Darcy’s grip on his arm stopped his retreat.

“No Yasha,” she dug her fingers into his bicep and pulled him back to her. “He’s our son,” she whispered. “Don’t think about it like that.”

“But it’s true,” he said to his boots, unable to look at anyone.

A sharp crack across his face brought his eyes up to Darcy’s, shock written on his face as he held the place her palm had connected with his cheek. “That’s enough,” she hissed. “It’s over, forgiven. We are moving on, and right now I do not have time for your pity party, got it.”

“Of course,” Yasha nodded his head and knelt down to the boy who was watching their exchange, slowly scooting back to cover the small girl behind him.

“I hate to interrupt,” Clint said, coming from the back of the room, dropping down onto the bed behind where the kids were huddled. “But we got three kids here, I’m pretty sure our intel said one.” They turned to the archer as he lounged in his dirty uniform on the bed, ruffling the small girl’s hair. She reached up to him and latched onto his arm. Clint slid off the bed and gently pulled the girl up into his arms, settling her on his hip, her little hands dug into the front of his uniform as her little head tucked under his chin, dark brown curls obscuring her face.

“Pull every file you can,” Bucky said to Natasha, accepting the girl from Barton’s arms, as Darcy took the baby back. “Scour the building, pull everything,” he tucked Darcy close to him. “Not one Hydra agent leaves this building.”

“We’ll wire the building,” Natasha nodded, and the two spies slipped out of the room.

“Ey, malyshka, skol’ko vam let?” (Hey, little one, how old are you?) Darcy asked the little girl hiding her face against Bucky’s chest. The girl just shook her head and rubbed her face against Bucky, her fingers digging in tighter.

“Ona ne razgovarivayet,” (She doesn’t talk) the boy said, his eyes still straight forward, he hadn’t twitched a muscle other than to protect his sister. “Nomer dva budet letom chetyre. My zaveshchaniy terpkiy yeye obuch eniye togda.” (Number two will be four in the summer. We will start her training then.)

Darcy sank slowly to her knees, mindful of the precious bundle in her arms. “U vas yest’drugoye imya? Kak oni nazyvayut tebya nichgo, krome odnogo?” (Do you have another name? Do they call you anything but one?)

“Net mem,” (No ma’am) the boy said, shaking his head minutely.

“Oy, malen’kiy mal’chik, us ne mem. Ya tvoya memochka,” (Oh little boy, I’m not ma’am. I’m your momma.) Darcy used the back of her hand to wipe away the tears tracking down her cheeks. “Idi syuda.” (Come here.)

“Us dolzhen byt’ nakazan?” the boy looked between Darcy and Bucky, his eyes landing briefly on the girls the adults were holding.

“Net,” (No) Bucky hitched the little girl more securely on his hip and held his left hand out to the boy, who stared at the metal prosthetic in wonder, before finally slipping his much smaller hand into the Soldiers, watching the plates shift as Bucky slowly closed his fingers over the boy’s. “Ne bokeye nakazaniye, my yedem domoy.” (No more punishment, we’re going home.)

“Soldier,” Barton’s voice came over the coms. “We’re all clear up here, buildings rigged, and we’re full to capacity with medical files.”

“Copy that, Hawkeye,” Bucky looked down at Darcy, who was slowly rocking their infant daughter back and forth, the baby’s bright blue eyes slipping shut. “We’ll meet you at the jet.”

“Want help with your new brood?” the archer asked, huffing through the coms.

“Negative,” the former Winter Soldier held his boy’s hand tight and surveyed the room. “Zakhvat it’vse, chto vy ne khotite, chtoby ostavit’ pozadi. My ne vozvrashchayutsva.” (Grab anything you don’t want to leave behind. We aren’t coming back.)

“Aktivy ne imeyut imushchestva, my vladeniyami,” (Assets do not have positions, we are positions) the boy told him.

“We are going directly to the toy store,” Darcy said, pulling her Glock out of its holster and covering Yasha, who had no free hands. “We’re going to need kid stuff, Tony,” she called through the coms. “Like the fluffiest of fluffy kids’ stuff.”

“Jarvis is already on it, kid,” Tony’s voice had a giddy edge of excitement.

As an afterthought, Darcy grabbed the arrow sticking out of the Hydra minders chest, tucking it through the back of her belt, and leaving the room without a backwards glance.

*****

Darcy and Bucky herded the kids up the ramp of the jet, Natasha and Clint already waiting, as soon as they were aboard, Tony detonated the base; the heat of the explosion hit them first, the shock wave momentarily waking the baby. She was fast asleep again when the sound of the blast washed over the group. The baby did not stir.

“She’s beautiful, sweetheart,” Yasha murmured against Darcy’s temple. “What ya gonna call her?”

Darcy just looked up at him with startled eyes. “I don’t know.” She ran her nose along the crown of the baby’s head, the down soft hair tickling her face. “I was so intent on finding her, I didn’t even think about her name.”

“Chto by vy khoteli, chtoby my pozvonili vam, odin?” (What would you like us to call you, one?) Bucky asked the boy, whose hand was still in his. The boy gave him a confused look. “My bol’she ne yavlyayutsya aktivami, vy zasluzhili imya, shakhta Bucky, vy mozhete nazyvat’ menya papoy,” (We are no longer assets, you deserve a name. Mine is Bucky, you can call me papa.)

“Ya ne znayu,” (I don’t know) the boy looked down at their clasped hands.

“Vy dumayete ob etom malen’kiy chelovek,” (You think about it, little man) Darcy smiled at him as she carefully sunk down onto the floor of the jet, her sleeping daughter in her arms. “Lyuboye imya, kotoroye vy khotite, yego za vami.” (Any name you want, it’s yours.) the boy nodded, unsure, letting Bucky settling him between his parents, his middle sister still huddled in her father’s arms. “I know she was still out there.”

“I know, baby doll,” Bucky tipped his head to hers, resting his forehead against her hair. “I just wasn’t banking on suddenly being a family of five.”

“Yeah,” Darcy sighed and watched their baby sigh with her. “Ya lyublyu tebya.” (I love you)

“Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu,” (I love you, too) he kissed her hair, and huddled their little family down together in the corner of the jet. “We’re gonna need Sam, like eighteen hours a day for a while.”

“Oh, yeah,” Darcy just nodded. “He’s gonna spend so much time telling us how unqualified he is.”

“Yep,” Bucky nodded. “Hey Barton, let’s get this bird in the air. It’s time to go home.”

“Sure thing,” Clint called, flipping switches, the engine’s whining to life. Darcy didn’t even notice they took off, her eyes captivated by their children, her little girl still clutching tight to Bucky’s tach shirt, her hands curled through the hole for his metal arm, her fingers tapping gently on the plates as they shifted minutely under her fingers.

“Let’s go home,” she smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Umm... so I need names for the kids, cause, like Darcy, I really wasn't expecting them and didn't even come up with a name for the baby... so, suggestions?
> 
> What would a five year old tortured and molded by Hydra name himself? This kid's gonna need so much therapy.
> 
> Please leave a donation in the box below.
> 
> Thank you!


	19. Whatsername

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've been struggling with this chapter quite a bit, and there was a while that I thought it wasn't ever going to get finished, but here it is. To say that I'm totally happy with it would be a big fat lie, but I'm done fiddling with it.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who sent in name suggestions, its daunting trying to name one kid who wasn't old enough to have an opinion, but three kids is hard. I hope you all like what I finally selected.
> 
> Any and all Russian mistakes are Google Translates fault, my Russian buddy isn't at work this week, and as such, none of my Russian has been proofread. Sorry to anyone who actually reads or speaks Russian. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Kitten

Chapter 19: Whatsername

Darcy realized very quickly that she was woefully unprepared for children. Three woke up screaming two hours into the flight home from Germany. Fat tears running down her chubby cheeks as she cast her big blue eyes around for something familiar, seeing One, she reached her fist, making grabby hands at her big brother.

“Mamochka,” (momma) the little boy rubbed his eyes, his voice thick with sleep. “Ya dumayu, choto tri goloden.” (I think Three is hungry.) The boy reached out to his sister, letting the baby latch on to his finger, his serious expression softening a little as the baby settled, suckling gently on her brother’s finger. “Ona khochet, chtoby yeye butylku.” (She wants her bottle.)

Darcy gave Bucky a horrified look over the boy’s head, where he was quietly reading to Two from a Stark Pad. “Do we have bottles?” she whispered, despite the fact that none of the kids spoke English. “For that matter, do we have diapers?” Bucky shrugged. “Three’s diapers feeling pretty heavy.”

“I didn’t think about it at the time,” he handed the tablet over to Two, who was looking at the bright pictures with rapt attention.  
“Jesus, Yasha,” Darcy ran her hand over her hair and looked down at their children with deep sadness. “We’ve had them for two hours, and I feel like we’ve already failed.”

“Odin iznikh, vymozhete vzyat’vashu sestru na minute?” (One, can you take your sister for a moment?) Bucky handed the baby over to the boy who cradled the baby expertly in his arms. “Tvoya mat I ya nuzhna minyta.” (Your mother and I need a moment.) Bucky pulled Darcy to her feet, his arms carefully around her shoulders as he lead her away from where their children where all playing with Two’s tablet. “We’re just a little unprepared,” he curled both arms around his lover, pressing his face into her hair. “This wasn’t exactly what we were expecting.”

“We have no formula, no diapers,” she rubbed her cheek against his chest. “No bottles, I can’t feed my baby, my kids have no names. I suck.”

“Darcy, you don’t suck,” Yasha tipped her face up to his, using the pad of his thumb to dry her tears. “This will all work out, take a deep breath,” he took his own breath, encouraging her to do the same. “If need be, Clint can land the jet and we can get what we need, or we can improvise until we get home. My momma improvised plenty when Becky was a baby. Sometimes it was too hard to get what she needed, sometimes there wasn’t money, we made do.”

Darcy nodded and accepted a gentle kiss. “I’ll go talk to Clint and Tash,” she said, slipping away.

Bucky turned and looked over at his children, the two older kids holding his baby girl between them carefully, so she could see the story book displayed on the tablet, too, her brother’s finger still between her lips. He could see his redemption in their shining blue eyes. It was all going to be okay, now. He flipped his phone between his fingers, itching to give Steve a call, but hesitating, recalling their last conversation, if you could call it that. He flicked the screen on and off.

“You should call him,” Natalia perched on a bench not far from where he stood, watching him. Of all the girls he’d trained, she was the only one that could ever catch him unawares. But then, she’d been the best of the best, and once upon a time, the love of the Winter Soldier’s life; now she was his beautiful lover’s big sister. It felt right that she was there to see his children returned to him.

“Don’t know if that’s a good idea, Natalia,” he looked down at the device, the deep red background highlighting the black icons. Sam had showed him how to customize the phone. The technology both thrilling him, and made him feel ancient. “I’m pretty pissed, still.”

“Darcy’s gonna say the same thing,” she hopped off the bench and looked down at the children. “Call him, he deserves to know what we found, and if you want to rebuild your friendship, if you want the chance to do it, either now or someday, you gotta call him.” She turned and watched Darcy and Clint discussing something with Tony, if she concentrated, she could have listened in, but there was no need. “I’m glad she made her choice, I’m glad she made the right choice, you know, for what it’s worth.”

“Natalia,” Bucky ran his hand over his hair, still tight in the braid his Kitten has fixed. “It means the world. I kinda thought you’d have been one to root for Barton to get the girl.”

“Once,” she shrugged. “But not now. The kitty cat’s your girl, has been for a long time.”

“Yeah,” he looked back at his kids. God, his kids, he had three children with the woman he loved beyond reason.

“They really are beautiful, Yasha,” Natalia smiled up at him.

“They got a lot of their momma in them,” Bucky said, letting the Widow slip under his arm, giving him a light side hug. “Can’t help being beautiful, with my Kitten as their mom.”

“Not so bad looking yourself, Soldier,” she told him, giving him one last squeeze. “Darcy and Tony are scrounging up some supplies, we keep diapers and such for emergencies,” she shrugged. “Never know what your gonna come across. Granted, we have no idea where they got stashed.”

“Thanks, Nat,” he rubbed his hands down his face.

“Come up with names?” she asked.

“Not a one,” Bucky shook his head. “You wanna be introduced to my nameless brood?”

“I would love to be introduced to your kids, Yasha,” Natalia graced him with one of her rare, true smiles.

“Odin, dva,” (One, two,) Bucky crouched down in front of his children, carefully lifting his youngest into his arms. He hadn’t remembered really holding his baby sister until he’d held little Three the first time, and then it was like he’d just put Becky down for the last time hours before. “Ya khochu predstavit’ svoyu tetyu Natalia.” (I want to introduce your Aunt Natalia.)

“Papa,” One said quietly, tucking his middle sister behind him, as he stood up. “Eto Chernaya Vdova,” (That’s the Black Widow,) the boy kept his eye on Natalia as he maneuvered himself and his sister into a more defensible position. “Ya znayu vse o ney. Ona ne nashi tetushka, ona predala Materi Rossii.” (I know all about her. She’s not our Aunty; she’s a traitor to Mother Russia.)

Bucky gently passed the baby over to Natalia, and knelt down in front of his son. “Ya znayu, chto Hydra rasskazal vam mnogo veshchey,” (I know Hydra has told you a lot of things,) he held his son’s hands between both of his. “No eti veshchi prosto ne sootvetstvuyut deystvitel’ nosti.” (But those things aren’t true.) He searched his boys face and took a deep breath; of course Hydra would turn the Avengers into his children’s enemies. “Natalia yavlyayets ya odnim iz samyka bor’shikh moikh druzey,” (Natalia is one of my greatest friends,) he stood, still holding One’s hand and brought him over to the Widow, his daughter clinging to the back of his pant leg. “Ona pomogla mne nayti svoyu mamu snova, I pomog vashey mamochki, I ya naydu tebya.” (She helped me find your mom again, and helped your momma and I find you.)

“Yasha,” Natalia handed his infant daughter back to him. “It’s alright, the poison Hydra fed them, it’ll take time for them to purge the lies,” she smiled kindly down at the boy. “They’re young; it will be easier for them.” She turned and placed a gentle kiss against the side of Darcy’s head, as she triumphantly returned with not only a bottle, but a packet of diapers and wipes.

“She alright?” Darcy asked Yasha as their daughter greedily sucked down the formula.

“She will be,” he kissed his girl’s up turned lips. “I think this is all bringing up bad memories.”

“Red Room?” she nodded. “Clint’ll help,” Bucky just smiled, settling his family back on the floor.

*****

Three settled back into a deep sleep once she’d been fed and changed. She lay cradled in his arms as Darcy scrolled through names on Two’s tablet, letting both children listen to options for their very own names.

“Ya dumayu, chto Sofya dovol’no,” (I think Sofya is pretty,) One said, looking up at Darcy with big eyes. “Kak vy dumayete, eto tak, sestra? (Do you think so, sister?) He asked Two, who just nodded.

“Vy khoteli by svoye imya, chtoby byt’ Sofya?” (Would you like for your name to be Sofya?) Darcy asked her daughter, who clung tightly to her arm, peering at the list of names that they scrolled through. “Eto znachit, mudrost’.” (It means wisdom.) The little girl gave her a small smile and shook her head, pointing to her baby sister. “Vy dumayete, tri dolzhny byt’ Sofya?” (You think Three should be Sofya?) She asked the girl, who nodded. “Vy soglasny?” (Do you agree?) She turned to her son, whose fingers were running down the lists of names.

“Da,” the boy nodded sharply. “Sofya khorosh dlya trekh.”

“Well,” Darcy looked over at Bucky, who was grinning down at their youngest. “One down, two to go.”

“How do you feel about patronyms?” Bucky asked, his fingers ghosting over baby Sofya’s soft peach fuzz. “I know neither of us are actually Russian, but it’s kind of a nice tradition.”

Darcy shrugged. “We can do that,” she looked at the kids. “Yakovich and Yakova?” Bucky nodded. “But as third names, family names as second names.”

“You got names in mind?” the soldier watched as his boy put down the tablet, and was waiting patiently.

“My mom’s name was Sarah,” Darcy shrugged. “It’s been a long time that she’s been gone, but I kinda wanted to name a kid after her, you know, if I ever got around to having any.” 

Bucky just raised a brow. “I think we’ve got that part covered,” his laugh was short and dry, but happy. “Sarah was Steve’s mom’s name. She was a really great lady. What do you say to Sofya Sarah Yakova?”

“Barnes,” she smiled at his shocked look. “What, they’re your kids.”

“And we ain't married, Darce,” he shrugged.

“I’m not budging on this one, Yasha,” Darcy told him, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Sofya Sarah Yakova Barnes,” he smiled. “That’s quite a name for such a little lady.”

“She’ll grow into it.”

“Vy nashli odin vam ponravilsya?” (Did you find one you liked?) Bucky asked his son, who was patiently waiting for the grownups to finish their talk. Bucky pointed at the dark tablet sitting on the floor.

“Nikolai,” the boy said. “Ya khochu, chtoby imet’ imya Nikolai.”(I want to own the name Nikolai.)

“Eto vse vashe,” (It’s all yours,) Darcy told him, running her fingers over the boys hair. He didn’t quite flinch away, but she could tell the action made him uneasy.

“Kak by vy sebya chuvstvovali o prinyatii moyego luchshikh druzey imya v kachestve vtorogo imeni?” (How would you feel about taking my very best friends name as your second name?) Bucky asked the boy, giving Darcy a pleading look over his head.

“Nikolai Steve?” she asked, looking more than a little skeptical.

“Nikolai Stepan Yakovich Barnes,” he corrected.

“Da,” (Yes,) the boy said, seeming pleased with the name.

“Speaking of Steve,” Darcy looked at the phone that kept appearing in her boyfriend’s hand. “You gonna call him before we show up with three kids, when he’s expecting maybe a baby?”

“I should,” Bucky fiddled with the phone.

“Yeah, you don’t do it, I’m going to,” she told him. “And after his parting words to me, I don’t see that going over too well.”

“We still have a kid to name,” he slipped the phone back into his pocket.

“You’re stalling,” Darcy rolled her eyes, and looked down at Two. “But you’re right.” She pulled her middle daughter into her lap, holding the tablet out in front of them. “Vy nashli tot, kotoryy y lyubite?” (Did you find one you like?) The little girl nodded. “Mozhesh’ skazat’ mne?” (Can you tell me?) the little girl just shook her head. “Dorogusha, ya ne mogu dogadat’sya.” (Sweetheart, I can’t guess.) Two just shrugged her shoulders, and Darcy started reading off names again until the girl stopped her. “Sanvi?” Darcy went back a few names, but the girl shook her head. “Sanya?” another shake. “Sasha?” the little girl nodded, a small smile on her face. “Vam nravitsya, Sasha?” (You like Sasha?) the girl nodded again.

“Sasha Rebekah, after my sister?” Bucky asked them both. Darcy and the little girl looked at each other and nodded.

“Sasha Rebekah Yakova Barnes,” Darcy nodded, putting the tablet down. “Now stop stalling and call Steve.”

“I’m calling,” Yasha pulled the phone out and flicked it on. “You sure you want me to call that punk, after the things he said?”

“Yasha,” Darcy just looked over at him. “Call Steve, tell him about our findings in Germany, and then we’ll introduce everyone to our kids. Clint’s been hinting that Francis is a great name for a boy, I can’t wait to disappoint him.”

“Francis is a terrible name,” the soldier muttered, as he held the phone up to his ear, listening to it ring.

“That’s what I said,” she smiled, letting her head fall to her lover’s shoulder.

“Hello?” Steve’s voice was tinny and distant through the speakers. “Bucky?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, Steve and Bucky talk, and the little family returns to base.
> 
> Thank you all for reading, and please keep up the amazing and wonderful comments.


	20. All Eyes on Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the lateness of this chapter, I had a bit of a cold this last week, and pretty much did nothing but sleep all weekend, thus no writing.
> 
> Enjoy!

Kitten

Chapter 20: All Eyes on Me

“Bucky?” Steve said his voice soft through the cell phones tiny speakers. “You there?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Bucky shook himself and caught Darcy’s eye as she smiled at him encouragingly. “Look, I’m still pretty pissed.”

“I know,” the Captain said quietly.

“Shut up punk,” he snapped, getting a look from his lover who was preparing a new bottle for Sofia. “Sorry, just let me get this out, cause I’m pissed and you talking’s gonna make me not wanna tell you nothing.” The Solider took a deep breath. “We’re about an hour out and Darcy insisted I call you before we got back, cause we came upon a little surprise.” Steve made a noise in the back of his throat, clearly swallowing a question. “God, I don’t even know how to say this,” Bucky ran his hand down his face. “Um, I’ve got three kids, punk.” The silence on the other side of the line stretched for long enough that Bucky had to check to make sure they were still connected.

“You’ve got what, now?” Steve’s voice broke over the speaker before Bucky heard the phone clatter to the ground. “Shit,” the phone dropped again. “Damn it, sorry, sorry,” Steve coughed a bit. “Say that gain for me, cause I’m sure I didn’t hear you right.”

“Hydra lied,” Bucky told him through the phone, his eyes on his baby girls fists wrapped around Darcy’s fingers as she sucked down the bottle that his lover held for her. “They falsified reports; we’ve got Tony looking to see if any more are hidden away. Clearly they were trying for a force of supers, or something.”

“Three,” Steve breathed. “You always talked about a big family.” Bucky barked out a laugh.

“This isn’t quite how I imagined it,” the Soldier said, winking at Darcy, who blew him a kiss, and then looked back down at their daughter, lifting the little girl to get a burp out of her.

“No, I don’t imagine it was. Look, I’m sorry, Buck,” came a small reply. “I shouldn’t have said anything, it’s your life, I just,” he breathed slowly into the phone. “I think you’re making a mistake.”

“I’m not,” Bucky clicked the phone off speaker and stood. “Look,” he walked a few paces away. “I don’t know what you have against my girl, but whatever it is, get over it,” he growled into the small phone. “She ain’t done nothing to you, Steve, and now more than ever, you gotta suck it up and deal with it.”

“I don’t know if it’s that easy,” Steve said, huffing out a long breath. “I don’t wanna see you hurt again, she’s gonna hurt you Buck, she’s done it before. She’ll jump ship the second she thinks she don’t need you no more. She’ll do it again, and you know it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Steven,” the Soldier said.

“Because you know Darcy Lewis so well,” the Captain countered. “You know some program Hydra built.”

“Does Barton know a program, or Natalya? You’re forgetting that my Kitten wasn’t programed when she came to me,” he slumped down on the floor, watching Darcy who was watching him under his lashes. “Whatever you found, bury it, burn it, it’s irrelevant.”

“Buck,” Steve coaxed.

“Burn it, Steve, let it go,” Bucky shouted, immediately regretting it, when little Sofia started to cry. “I got three kids now, a family with Darcy; you take whatever objections you got and stuff them, or stay the fuck out of our lives, got it?” Bucky shouted into the phone, his heart beating like a jack hammer in his ears, breath caught in his throat.

“You’re right,” Steve said after a long moment. “I shouldn’t have said anything, it’s your choice.”

“Damn right it is,” the former Asset growled. “I shouldn’t have called. Darcy wanted me to, she’s insisted since we left that I need to make up with you, cause you’re my best friend, and I know she’s right, but right now I wanna put my fist through your damned face for making my girl cry and for being such a fucking dick.”

“She said that?” his friend’s voice was very small.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighed, feeling little fingers tapping against his metal arm. “You’d like her if you gave her half a chance, Stevie,” he smiled down at little Sasha, who held out her arms up to him. “Vy khotite, chtoby ya zabrat’ tebya, printsessa?” (You want to me to pick you up, princess?) The little girl nodded and Bucky pulled her into his lap.

“So what was this about three kids?” Steve asked, as he listened to Bucky. “Will you tell me about them?”

“Yeah, punk,” he fiddled with the phone, and brought back on the speaker function. “Eto tvoy dyadya Steve, luchshiy drug on papina.” (This is your Uncle Steve, he’s daddy’s best friend.) Sasha waved at the phone in Bucky’s hand and buried her face in his jacket. “Sasha’s almost four,” he told Steve. “Nikolai says she’s never talked, we don’t really know why, right now we don’t really know much, but she understands us just fine.”

“Zdravstvuyte Sasha,” Steve said into the phone. “Ya ne mogu zhdat’, chtoby vstretit’sys s vami.” (Hello Sasha. I can’t wait to meet you.) He said in slightly stilted Russian. Sasha nodded her head against her father’s chest, her hand snaking out to take the phone, turning it over in her hands.

“Eto pokhodit na planshete, no malo,” (It’s like your tablet, but little.) Bucky ran his fingers through the little girl’s hair as her hands explored the phone. “My ne mozhem videt’dyadyu Steve, no my mozhem pogovorit’ s nim.” (We can’t see Uncle Steve, but we can hear him.) The girl gave a tentative smile and handed the phone back to her father. “Sasha’s our middle child,” he told Steve. “She’s got a big brother named Nikolai and the baby is Sofia.”

“I’m happy for you Buck,” his friend told him.

“Even though they’re Darcy’s kids, too?” he asked.

“No matter what,” Steve sighed. “Could I?” he took a deep breath. “Can I talk to Darcy, Buck, I should,” he sighed again and cleared his throat. “I should apologize.”

“Doing it over the phone is a punk move,” Bucky said, pulling himself and Sasha up off the bench, the little girl’s legs wrapping around his waist. “Gotta ask if she even wants to listen.”

“I’ll do it again later,” Steve said. “I gotta at least say something; she’s the mother of my nieces and nephew.”

“Yeah,” Bucky set Sasha down by her brother, who was doing his five year old best to keep Natalia in his sights. Taking Sofia from Darcy and tucking the phone against his chest. “Steve asked to talk to you,” he whispered as she pulled herself up off the floor. “You okay with that?” Darcy kissed the corner of his mouth and slid the phone out of his fingers.

Darcy looked down at Bucky’s cell phone like it might bite her, as she held it gently in her hand; Bucky just gave her a reassuring kiss against her lips and slipped down to sit with the children.

“Hello?” she said into the phone, taking a few steps away from her family, fiddling with the buckles on her uniform as she listened to Steve swallow.

“Yeah, hi,” Steve shifted in his seat, swallowing hard again. Darcy could hear the denim of his jeans rubbing against the fabric of whatever seat he was in. “Thank you for encouraging Bucky to call me,” he said, shifting again. “I ah, I didn’t deserve it, not after what I said.”

“I understand why you did,” Darcy slid into Tony’s abandoned rolly chair, waving off Clint’s concerned look. “If it had been Jane, I’da done the same thing; I might have waited for a more appropriate time, but I’d do just about anything of my friend.”

“Is this the part where I apologize for being an enormous dick,” he asked, his voice tight. “Or tell you if you hurt my friend they won’t find the body?”

“This is the part where you shut up and listen very carefully,” she said quietly enough that she knew the supers on the jet couldn’t hear her, but the man on the phone could, her voice filled with ice. “This jet is gonna be landing in less than an hour, when it does, you are going to be waiting with a fucking smile on your face,” Darcy growled, letting every bit of the Kitten bleed into her voice. “You are gonna congratulate Bucky on his three beautiful children, your gonna hug him, let him make a show of introducing all three of them.” She took a long breath, spinning her chair so her back was to Nat and Clint, both of whom could read lips, and were giving her matching concerned looks. “And if I ever hear you talk about one of my kids or to one of my kids the way you talked about me today, I will rain suffering down on you the likes of which you can’t even imagine, am I clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve said very quietly. “Are you finished?”

“No,” the former asset straightened her back and adjusted her grip on the phone. “I don’t know what you think you know about me, or why you’ve seemed to dislike and distrust me from the start, and I don’t really care to speculate, so I’m just going to say this,” she cleared her throat. “We all make choices in our lives that we aren’t proud of, and in this digital age, those choices follow you much longer.” Darcy stood up and strode over to Nat, smiling at the other woman, and leaning against her seat. “Is there anything else, or can I go back to my children?”

“Have you told Bucky?” the Captain asked, shuffling around, making it clear how uncomfortable he was with the conversation.

“I will,” Darcy told him, her heart jumping into her throat. “If he wants, I’ll even show him, I don’t want any secrets, but you need to let it go; that’s not the girl I am now, and I really don’t think it ever was, but desperation, I’m sure you know, makes you do things your rational mind would not agree with.”

“I don’t know I get your meaning,” Steve hedged.

“Really, cause I seem to recall something about you trying to enlist nine times, changing where your from and such each time, at least, according to my history teacher, and I’m pretty good at history,” Darcy said into the phone, a little song in her voice.

“Something like that,” he muttered. “I don’t see that being the same.”

“You’re right,” Darcy slipped into Nat’s chair as the Widow went to get the jet ready for post mission checks. “Not one thing I did was illegal,” she told him with an air of finality. “Remember what I said, Steve, good bye.” Darcy ended the call and slipped it into one of her pockets.

“Did Steve apologize?” Clint asked, putting the Quinjet into autopilot and gave her his full attention.

“Sort of,” Darcy leaned back and propped her feet up on the dash. “Mostly I told him off.”

“Good girl,” the Hawk swiveled in his chair. “He all up in arms about a little Cyber nudity, then?”

“You know?” she froze. “Of course you know.” She waited for him to be angry or tell her she was cheap or shame her for her life choices.

“Nat found them,” he shrugged. “She’s got glossies, if you want to make her month, you’ll sign them for her. She might even return the favor.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Darcy let her arms fall to her sides, dropping onto the arm rests. “You’re not mad?”

“When are you gonna stop asking me that? Why would I be mad?” Clint leaned forward, looking Darcy in the eye. “What you do, with your body, is your choice, don’t let anyone, especially Captain Tight Pants, shame you for that.”

“I couldn’t send you my pic, I totally chickened out,” she said to her hands, holding onto the arms of her jump seat. “But I could let myself be ogled by thousands of men across the country at the click of a button.”

“You know me, it was a bigger risk,” he shrugged. “It’s more personal. And don’t sell yourself short, you were Cybergirl of the month, you had millions of hits.”

“That isn’t a comfort,” Darcy dropped her head into her hands. “Shut up, Hawk.” She shook her head. “It’s not even all,” she groaned. “What, you said Nat’s got one?”

“For an op,” Clint grinned. “Under an assumed name, just like you, ask her for a copy.”

“Ugh,” she threw her head back and banged it on the head rest. “I gotta tell Yasha.”

“That you had a very had decision to make and chose to do a very tasteful nude photo shoot to avoid paying for college with loans that would have crippled you well into adulthood, you know if you weren’t legally dead right now?” he asked. “No, your boyfriend, who has loved you unerringly through everything you’ve gone through, won’t understand at all.”

“You think I’m being silly?” Darcy huffed.

“I know you’re being silly,” he pulled her gently from her seat and kissed her cheek. “Now that we’ve cleared that up,” he got out of his seat. “Why don’t you introduce me to your kids? I hear they got names now.”

“I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to meet Uncle Hawkeye,” she grinned; pulling him over to were Bucky was seated with the kids, Thor cradling Sofia in his arms.

“Not as thrilled as they are with Thor,” a long string of drool ran down the Aesir’s vambrace, originating from the baby’s mouth.

“Your children are a true gift,” Thor actually managed to whisper, petting a soft finger over the infants peach fuzz hair. “They are beautiful, little sister.”

“Thanks, big guy,” Darcy let Clint pull her into a deep hug as she looked down at the baby snuggling into her friend’s chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll be back to the base next chapter. Time for the kids to settle into their new home, and Darcy and Bucky to find a way to make their lives blend, including how they're going to handle living situations. Plus, Darcy tells Bucky about her cyber past, and a little more.
> 
> Send me plot bunnies!!


	21. Meeting the Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On time! Success!
> 
> I need to teach Bucky and Darcy's kids English, STAT, cause this translation thing is a bitch and a half.
> 
> Enjoy!!

Kitten

Chapter 21: Meeting the Family

Sasha fell instantly in love with Clint, not that Darcy could complain, he was pretty great, there were much worse people that her little girl could get attached to. She watched her middle child curl up in the co-pilots seat as the jet landed at the Avenger’s Facility, her small hand clutching the archers.

“Chto zh, eto domoy, malyshka,” (Well, this is home, little one,) Clint smiled at the girl, squeezing her hand gently. Sasha gave him a small smile and looked over her shoulder to Darcy.

“Vy khotite, chtoby pomoch’ Clint sdelat’ okonchatel’nyye proverk bezopasnosti, Sasha?” (You want to help Clint do the final safety checks, Sasha?) She asked her daughter, running her fingers though the little girl’s hair. Sasha nodded her head, sitting forward as the archer explained exactly what he was doing.

“He’s good with her,” Yasha curled his arms around her waist, his hands spaying along her stomach.

“Yeah,” they watched as the archer showed the girl which buttons to push, letting her do it herself when he could. “I think we’re going to be okay.”

“Of course we are,” he kissed her cheek and pulled her back to where Thor was gently rocking Sofia, and Nikolai was scowling at Natasha and Tony.

“Papa, pochemu my zdes’ s etimi lyud’mi?” (Papa, why are we here with these people?) Nikolai stood with his hands behind his back at attention, breaking Darcy’s heart just a little bit. He was young, there was time. She reminded herself like a mantra. “My dolzhny vernut’sya v Rossiyu, eto doma, a ne zdes’.” (We should be going back to Russia, that’s home, not here.)

“Nikolai, ya znayu, shto eto trudno dlyavas, no eto domoy,” (Nikolai, I know this is hard for you, but this is home now.) Bucky told the boy hefting his go bag over his shoulder and handing Darcy hers. “Vash mama i ya oba iz Ameriki, a takzhe nashikh druzey i sem’i zdes.” (Your momma and I are both from America, and our friends and families are here.)

“Oni ne moi druz’ya,” (They are not my friends) the boy growled, his eyes boring into the back of Natasha’s head. “Oni yavlyayutsya vragami Hydra,” (They are the ememies of Hydra.)

“Ya znayu, chto yego tridno’dlya vas, chtoby ponyat’,” (I know it’s hard for you to understand,) he knelt in front of his son, his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “No Hydra, oni ne yavlyayutsya khoroshimi lyud’mi.” (But Hydra, they aren’t good people.) The boy scowled, but Bucky just tipped his head to look into his eyes. “Natalia, i Steve, eto te lyudi, kotoryye pomogu mne nayti vas, kto pomog nam vernut’sya domoy kak sem’ya,” (Natalia and Steve, they are the people who helped me find you, who helped us come home as a family.) Nikolai frowned, fidgeting under his father’s intense gaze. “Ya nadeyus, chto vy mozete doveryat’ svoyemu mamchki, i ya, chtoby skazat’vam, chto khoroshu, i pover’te nam, shto Hydra net.” (I hope you can trust your momma and I to tell you what’s good, and believe us that Hydra is not.) The boy frowned, but nodded.

“We’re all set,” Clint hitched Sasha up higher on his hip.

“How come every time I step off this stupid jet, I feel like I’m going into battle?” Darcy took Sofia back from Thor, who left a final kiss on the baby’s soft head.

“You got an over developed sense of fight or flight,” the archer hip checked her with the hip her daughter wasn’t on.

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not,” she said, watching the ramp lower entirely too slowly.

“It’s what keeps you alive, kitty cat,” Natasha kissed her cheek, cognizant of Nikolai’s stiffening spine.

Steve stood in jeans and a dark blue Henley, eyes on them, looking both excited and apprehensive. Bucky took his son’s hand and lead their group down the ramp, his best friend watching them the entire way.

“Hey punk,” Bucky grinned at his friend, happy to see that he’d come out to meet them, despite the fact that it was well into the middle of the night. “We’re home.”

“I can see,” the Captain’s eyes traveled over the group, Bucky held the hand of a boy that couldn’t be mistaken for anyone by Bucky’s son, he was nearly the spitting image of his best friend when he was a boy, but the sea blue eyes were all Darcy’s. Clint’s little friend had her face pressed into his chest, her hands clutching at him like he was the only thing in the world keeping her safe, and finally, in Darcy’s arms was a baby, her chubby little hands holding one of Darcy’s fingers, her eyes deeply closed. “Would you introduce me?” Steve asked hopefully.

“Nikolai,” Bucky looked down at his son, pulling the boy forward just a little. “Eto vash dyadya Steve, Steve eto Nikolai Stepan Yakovitch Barnes, Darcy i moy starshiy i yedinstvennyy syn,” (This is your Uncle Steve, Steve this is Nikolai Stepan Yakovitch Barnes, Darcy and my oldest, and only son.)

Steve leaned down to shake the boy’s hand, but Nikolai just looked at him wearily. “Kaptain Amerika,” the boy said, looking down at the older man’s hand. 

“Moi druz’ya prosto zovut menya Steve,” (My friends just call me Steve) he smiled shyly at the boy, still holding his hand out waiting for Nikolai to take it.

“Moy otets skazal, chto ty moy dyadya,” (My father said you are my uncle,) Nikolai took Steve’s hand and shook it briefly. 

“Eto verno, priyatel’,” (That’s right, buddy,) Steve said, ruffling the boys hair. Nikolai looked scandalized and danced back a few paces, ducking back around his father’s legs, situating himself in front of Clint and Sasha, making sure that Darcy and Sofia where behind his father.

“Maybe not a good idea,” Bucky mumbled, shaking his head at his friend. “Nikolai’s been in training under Hydra, punk,” he sighed and reached back for his son. “And you are not on the Hydra approved sitter list.”

“I suppose not,” he scratched the back of his head. “Izvinite, Nikolai.” (Sorry, Nikolai.)

“Ya ne doveryayu tebe, kapitan amerika,” (I don’t trust you, Captain America,) the boy said, watching Steve again. “I vy delaytet momochka neudobno.” (And you make momma uncomfortable.)

“Nikolai,” Darcy scolded.

“Ya mogu skazat’, vy derzhite yego v vizual’nom diapazone, i derzhat’ ruku mezhdu nim i Sofia. Vy ne doveryayete yemu tozhe,” (I can tell, you keep him in visual range, and keep your arm between him and Sofia. You don’t trust him either.)

“On drug vashego ottsa, a vash dyadya, vy dolzhny otnosit’sya k nemu s uvazheniyem,” (He’s your father’s friend, and your uncle, you need to treat him with respect,) Darcy told the boy, who snapped to attention, nodding his head slightly.

“Kak vy govorite sudarynya,” Nikolai snapped, waiting for Darcy to give him his next instruction. She sighed and rubbed her fingers down the boys head.

“Steve,” Bucky pulled him around where Darcy and Nikolai where having a small moment, and over to Clint, still holding Sasha. “Sasha pochti chetyre goda, ona nemnogo stesnyayetsya,” (Sasha is almost four, she’s a bit shy,) his friend told him, gently taking his daughter out of Clint’s arms. The girl immediately curled around her father. “Eto Sasha Rebekah Yakova Barnes. Sasha, eto vash dyadya Steve, vy govorili s nim po telefonu ren’she, vy pomnite?” (This is Sasha Rebekah Yakova Barnes. Sasha, this is your Uncle Steve, you talked to him on the phone earlier, do you remember?) Bucky asked his daughter, ducking his head to look at her the best he could. She nodded and smiled shyly at Steve, waving at him.

“Eto khorosho, chtoby vstretit’sya s vami, Sasha,” (It’s good to meet you, Sasha,) Steve smiled at her, she tucked her head back down against her father’s chest.

“And last but not least,” Bucky took him back over to where Darcy was standing, Nikolai looked less at attention, but still uncomfortable with all the people around. “This is Sofia Sarah Yakova Barnes.” Bucky kissed the sleeping baby’s head. “She’s the one we expected to find.”

“They’re beautiful, Buck,” Steve told him sincerely.

“Thanks,” he pulled Darcy under his arm nuzzling against the side of her head. “Wouldn’t have been possible without my best girl.”

“Speaking of,” Steve scratched the back of his head. “Think I can borrow you for a bit, Darcy?”

“Sure,” she kissed Bucky and handed Sofia off to Natasha. “She’s gonna need to be changed soon.”

“I think I can handle a smelly baby, kitty,” Natasha smirked. “Or just make her father take care of it.”

“That’s my girl,” Darcy smiled at the assassin and nodded to Steve. “We doing this in private, Captain?”

“I think that might be best,” he showed her into the building, pulling her into an empty meeting room. “This is everything I dug up,” he handed her a thick file folder. “I shouldn’t have, but I needed to know who my best friend was pining over.”

Darcy flipped through the first few pages and groaned. “I get it,” she sighed. “Steve, like I said before, we all make mistakes in life.” She waved the folder at him. “Some of us make more mistakes then others, but you gotta know, this.” Darcy handed the folder back to him. “This isn’t me. This is a desperate young girl, who wanted something better in life then a dead end job at a diner,” she ran her hands over her face and down over the buckles of her suit, her nerves making her twitchy. “I did what I had to for money, and while I’m not proud of all of it, it was my choice and my body.”

“And now it’s Bucky’s life, too,” he dropped the folder on the table, the glossy surveillance photos spilling out across the table, the grainy pictures staring up at her from the past. “Share it with him, or don’t, but I think he needs to know.”

“Who else knows about these?” Darcy pushed the photos around, looking at them, not one painted her in a particularly good light.

“Jarvis helped,” Steve admitted, watching her finger though the glossies. “So I’m guessing Tony knows.”

“Right, well, thanks for unearthing all my skeletons,” she growled. There wasn’t supposed to be any photography in the club, but here it was, picture after picture of her in various states of undress, a few even from the private booths in the back.

“These are all Hydra surveillance pictures, Darcy,” Steve flicked a couple pictures.

Darcy looked at him for a moment, searching his face for what he wasn’t saying. When she figured it out she sucked in a breath, shoving photos back into the folder. “You think I let them take me?”

“From what I’ve found,” he shrugged, not bothering to hide his disgust. “Looks like you’d do just about anything for money.”

“Legally,” she growled. “Steve, I may have sold the fantasy, but I never sold the reality.”

“Is that so?” he watched her intently, her cheeks flushed, heart rate increasing, she was angry, but he couldn’t tell if she was lying or not. “A stripper who was low on cash, and you were, you didn’t have enough to pay the semesters tuition, I think they bought you off.”

“Find any money trail, Captain?” Darcy hugged the folder to her chest, narrowing her eyes at the man in front of her.

“Only reason I didn’t go right to Bucky,” Steve shrugged, not worried that this little girl was angry at him.

“You won’t,” she spat. “I was kidnapped and thrown into that cell. There’s no deal with Hydra, no hidden plot here. And you’re a dick for even suggesting that I let this happen to myself. You know, the one and only time I fought the Soldier when he raped me? He broke my collar bone with his left hand. Hydra did nothing.” She shuddered at the memory, it had hurt so much she thought she would pass out, she hoped that she would pass out, but she hadn’t. She could still feel the broken ends of her collar bone rubbing together as the Soldier held her down, impaling her over and over again until he was satisfied. “Yasha set it when he came down, but it was pretty bad, and it hurt like a fucking bitch. He was inconsolable for days, hiding in the back of the cell from me. He vomited so hard, I thought he was going to do real damage to himself.” Darcy put the folder down and grabbed Steve’s hand, pushing it into the skin of her shoulder so he could feel the knot of bone where her collar had broken. “A month later, before it completely healed, the Soldier broke it all over again, holding me down while he fucked me.” She dropped Steve’s hand like it had burned her. “You don’t believe me, ask Bucky.”

“You gonna tell Bucky?” he asked, rubbing his hands together, feeling more than a little ashamed at the accusations he’d leveled upon her.

“That you’re a giant asshole, or that you thought I was in bed with Hydra before we met?” Darcy snarled. “I should, but I think he knows you’re a jerk, he calls you one often enough. As for the other. Yeah, I’m going to tell him. I’m going to show him this whole folder, and then I’m going to tell him about everything you didn’t find.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve told her, hanging his head.

“You fucking well should be,” she said, sighing. “I love Bucky, I know you don’t understand or believe that, but I do, more than anything. I won’t hurt him if I can help it.”

“I think you’re just going to have to prove that to me,” he told her.

“I got nothing to prove to you, Steven Grant Rogers,” Darcy tucked the folder under her arm and left the room.

Steve pulled his hands down over his face and shook his head. He was a giant asshole, just like Darcy had said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know how I'm doing... and please feed my muse, my updates come easier when she's full.


	22. A Tendency to Start Fires

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A whole day early!! I do have to confess, and say that most of this has been written in my notes for like nearly two weeks, I just had to do some editing and flesh it out a bit.
> 
> Enjoy!

Kitten

Chapter 22: A Tendency to Start Fires

Darcy hitched Sasha up on her hip, watching curiously as Tony fiddled with the disassembled lock on her personal quarters, his arm half way into the wall. She just observed for a moment as Sasha’s head lulled onto her shoulder, the little girl’s sleepy hands petting down her arms. “So,” Darcy tipped her head against her daughter’s, shifting her weight. “What are you doing?”

Tony pulled his arm out of the wall and dusted off his hands, picking up the touch pad and replacing it over the hole. “Fixing it so the kids can’t get out on their own,” his fingers flew over the pad, but stilled when he felt Darcy’s icy glare on the back of his head. “Not cause they’re tiny murder bots,” he back peddled, his fingers stilling on the screen. “But cause they’re,” he waffled around. “You know, little,” Darcy nodded. “Don’t want them wandering around on their own,” Tony went back to programing the lock. “Though, seriously, Nikolai scares me a little.”

“He’ll be happy to hear that,” she huffed out a small laugh and hitched Sasha up again, the nearly four year old starting to get heavy as she lulled towards sleep.

“Can I just pause here,” Tony dropped his tools back in their box. “And tell you that Steve was way out of line.”

“So you know,” Darcy dropped her gaze to the top of her daughter’s tiny brunette head, letting out a long breath, it wasn’t that she was ashamed of who she was, or the decisions she’d made, but Steve’s accusations were still a bright pulsing heat at the front of her mind.

“Very little passes though Jarvis that I don’t know about, Darcy Lou,” Tony said softly, tucking a stray hair back behind Sasha’s ear, giving the mute child a small smile when she looked up. “I should have said something to him,” he shrugged slightly. “But I was kinda thinking I might make it worse, you know?”

“Thanks,” he’d probably been right, any word he’d said in her defense would have just dug Steve’s heels in deeper.

Tony picked up his toolbox and gave the two girls a cheeky smile. “Now, you and Robocop have fun playing house with your little assassin brood,” he pushed the door open, holding it while Darcy slipped through. “I’m off to bed.”

“Thank you, Tony,” she put Sasha down on the couch and turned back to where Tony was leaning in the doorway.

“Don’t mention it,” he transferred the box into the other hand and shuffle out of Bucky’s way as he brought the other two kids into the apartment. “I mean really, don’t mention it, might ruin my reputation.”

“Mention what?” Darcy cocked her head to the side as Bucky passed Sofia to her and led the other two into the guestroom, a bag of newly purchased kid’s clothes in his hand, curtesy of one Pepper Potts, the world’s most efficient and magical children’s shopping genius.

“I knew I liked you,” Tony blew her a comically exaggerated kiss and rolled out of the room, letting the door shut behind him with a soft click.

Darcy followed Bucky into the guestroom and situated Sofia into her newly constructed crib, the six month old not even stirring, her pacifier working between her tiny lips as her mother gazed down at her peacefully sleeping face.

“After we get the kids to bed,” she pulled tags off the Finding Dory pajamas for Sasha and held them out for Bucky. “You and I need to sit down and talk.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he told her, not even missing a beat between pulling off Sasha’s Hydra provided dress and pulling on the brightly colored sleep shirt. “It’s no big deal,” he helped the little girl into the soft blue sleep pants and carefully pulled her braid out of the back of her shirt, earning himself a big smile from the quiet child. “We’ve got a lot to figure out, and if you’re more comfortable with me out there, I understand.”

Darcy just shook her head, dumping Sasha’s dress into the bag their pajamas had come in. “After our talk,” she wrung the plastic bag between her hands. “If you wanna sleep on the couch, or even back in your room at Steve’s,” she tossed the bag at the door to dispose of later. “That’s completely up to you.”

“Okay,” Bucky looked worried, handing Nikolai his Paw Patrol pajamas. He took Darcy’s hand and gently pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her. “Do I wanna ask what this is about, then? Cause I can’t imagine anything that would keep me from your bed if you want me there.”

“Steve, mostly,” she laid her head against his chest, watching Nikolai help Sasha up into the big bed that still dominated the guestroom, the kids beds wouldn’t arrive until the next day, despite Pepper’s best efforts.

“What he do now, babe?” Bucky lead her out of the guestroom and sat them both on the couch where they could still watch the kids.

Darcy took a long deep breath and pulled out the folder Steve had presented her with. “He did some major digging into my past,” she dropped the folder on the coffee table, keeping a small distance between them. “I’ll tell you all about it when the kids are asleep.” Darcy tucked her feet up under herself, her hands folded in her lap. “And thanks to your best friend, we even have helpful visuals to really drive the point home.”

“I don’t need to know, Darce,” he unwound her fingers, that she’d hand clasped together so tightly the tips were white, and laced them threw with his own. “It’s your past, doesn’t matter now,” he pulled her up onto his lap, tucking her under his chin and breathing in her scent, warm lavender and vanilla, spiced with the rich leather of her uniform. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“You tell me that after you see what’s in the folder,” her voice was nothing but the smallest whisper. “Okay, Yasha?”

“I love you, kitten,” he watched her face for any sign of reaction to the nickname, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“I know you love kitten,” Darcy let her head rest on his metal shoulder, comforted by its unyielding strength beneath his uniform, buckles digging into her scalp. “I’m just worried you’re not going to love the Darcy bits, too.” She slipped off his lap and out of the living room to check on the older kid’s progress towards bed. She ran a soft hand over Sofia’s downy hair and tucked her older two children into their shared queen-sized bed, already fast asleep. Tooth brushing could wait for morning. Darcy took a moment, looking down at the children she never expected to have and the baby she thought had been lost to her forever. No matter what waited for her in the living room, whatever Yasha chose, she’d have them, and that could be enough.

*****

Bucky shoved the door to Steve’s apartment open so hard the know stuck fast into the drywall, bits of plaster rained down on his head, but he didn’t even take notice as he stalked across the living room to where Steve was sitting, watching him with wide eyes, his book forgotten in his lap. Bucky threw the file down on the table in front of the stunned Captain, nearly shaking with anger. Glossy photos slid across the glass table and on to the floor, granny black and whites and full color prints lay like a stain on the carpet.

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Bucky’s flesh hand was knuckle white, while the gears of his other arm ground together.

“I just,” Steve went to pick up the fallen pictures, but the Soldier shoved him back into his seat.

“No, you shut up,” his voice shook. Bucky closed his eyes and tried to count to ten. “I’m talking,” he paced back to the door that was still stuck open and back to Steve, who was watching him carefully. “You know my girl, the one I spent months searching for, belaying you with tales of my misdeeds?” he rolled his shoulders, not able to look down at the man still sitting stock still in his plush leather arm chair. “The girl I told you I didn’t deserve because of the suffering I caused her,” the pictures that littered the carpet crunching under his combat boots, wishing he could grind them into bits and make Steve eat every single last one of them. “The one who finally came to me and chose me?” he tried to count to ten again and reign in some of the white hot rage that was boiling in the back of his mind.

Steve took a breath. “Bucky,” he pleaded, but was only met with a dismissive hand.

“The girl I told you was the mother of my fucking children,” Bucky continued. “You remember her?” he picked up a picture off the table, gazing down at the crumpled photograph of Darcy in red and black lace, hair splayed out around her head in a rich brown halo. “Yeah, Darcy,” he dropped the picture gently back onto the table with the others that hadn’t quite made it to the floor. “She just finished telling me about your little search into her past, told me about all the thigs she did to pull herself up by her bootstraps and put herself through college, because there fucking wasn’t anyone else to do it,” Darcy had paced too, while she told him, held each picture for a moment, letting memories wash over her, before sharing every one. “She shared every picture, every secret it contained and fucking told me she would understand if I didn’t want her anymore, thought it might damage my nineteen forties sensibilities, not that she actually said that.”

“I had to,” Steve stood slowly, looking over the spilled file littering his living room floor.

Bucky hauled back and decked Steve, knocking him back into his chair, the metal knuckles of his left hand tearing the skin across the Captain’s cheek. Steve sat stunned once again, looking up at his best friend, who had a look on his face he never thought he’d see directed towards hi, “Somethings seriously wrong with your head, cause this isn’t who you are, Steven,” he wiped his bloody knuckles off on the tactical pants he still hadn’t had a chance to change out of. “You don’t bully girls, that little guy from Brooklyn; he’s deeply ashamed of you. You’re the one who I used to have to pull off guys twice his size for cat-calling pretty girls,” he ran his hand over his hair, pulling pieces out of the tight braid Darcy had made for him that was slowly losing its fight against gravity. “The guy who offered to walk the girls that worked the docks home, so they’d feel safe, and here you are shaming my girl,” Bucky collapsed onto the couch like his strings hand been cut, his head falling into his hands. “My girl, Steve. For things she did to put herself through school, not one of them wrong.” He just couldn’t figure it out, when had little Stevie Rogers become such a huge asshole? “The school that Hydra interrupted when they kidnapped her and turned her into their Soldier’s captive little fuck toy. And the,” he burst back to his feet and started pacing again. “The kicker, and boy is this a fucking doozy, you had the audacity to insinuate that she was complacent, bought off by Hydra, to do what exactly,” Bucky stood over Steve, waiting for an answer. For a moment, Steve’s mouth hung open like he might say something before Bucky turned away, back towards the door. “Seduce me?” his circuit brought him back in front of Steve. “Cause I can tell you, there was no seduction involved in that first year, just my metal hand around her throat.” He stopped, seeing Natasha and Clint watching from the hallway, horrified expressions on both of the assassin’s faces. “You stay the fuck away from my girl and my family until you can remember the man you used to be,” Bucky stalked out, nodding at Clint and Natasha as he passed, leaving Steve sitting in a pile of glossy surveillance photos, his door still wide open.

*****

Darcy sat on her bed, hair knotted up in a bun on top of her head, a book in her hand. The only light in the room was the bedside lamp, her curtains tightly drawn to keep the morning sun out. She heard Yasha as he crept quietly through the living room. She tucked her bookmark into her book and dropped it on the night stand. “I though you went to get something to sleep in?”

“Oh, fuck me,” Bucky rubbed his hand over his face. “I totally forgot.” He made like he was going to leave again, but Darcy slipped from the bed, stopping him.

“Doesn’t matter,” she pulled him back into the room and shut the door. “You don’t need anything.”

“I don’t even got a toothbrush, doll,” he gestured down at his uniform, still dirty and stiff from being worn for more than twenty four hours.

“Grab a t-shirt from the closet,” Darcy shrugged, pulling at the buckles she’d helped him into the day before. “I bet Clint’s left something you can wear.”

“Right,” Yasha pulled the tie out of her hair, letting the damp heavy weight fall over his hands. “I’d really rather be naked.”

“That’s fine with me,” she tilted her head up and kissed her chin. “Might shock the kids in the morning.”

“Okay,” he kissed her lips slowly, taking the time to taste the mint from her toothpaste and the warmth that was all hers. “T-shirt tonight, tomorrow I’ll get my stuff from Steve’s.”

“You two talk?” Darcy pushed his jacket off his shoulders, wrinkling her nose at the musky sweaty smell that had marinated under the leather, pushing him towards the bathroom.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Yasha let her start the shower. “Sufficed to say, we aren’t talking right now.”

“You’ll work it out,” she tested the water before heading towards the door. “Shower, I’ll be waiting for you when you’re done.”

“I love you, kitten,” he told her, watching her as she hung in the doorway for a moment, her oversized t-shirt with some cartoon character he didn’t know on it, legs bear underneath. He couldn’t believe he was so lucky.

“I love you too, Yasha,” Darcy blew him a kiss. “Hurry up; I could definitely use some cuddling after today.”

“Fastest shower ever,” Bucky winked.

“With soap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who thinks that Natasha and Clint are going to have their own privet conversation with our dear friend Steve about getting his head out of his ass? But, have faith, Stevie wont be a dick forever, he just needs some incentive to not be an ass, and maybe a little reminder why he hates bullies.
> 
> Please leave a small donation in the box below, my muse is always hungry.


	23. Let the Record State

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two in a week! Yes, I'm back on track!
> 
> Please be advised, this chapter contain disturbing imagery, and depictions of rape.
> 
> Thank you, and enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 23: Let the Record State

Clint watched as Bucky stalked down the hallway, every muscle ridged with tension as he made an abrupt turn around the corner and was gone.

“Dude,” the archer breathed, slipping through the open door of Steve’s apartment. “You fucked up.” Clint swung himself up onto the kitchen counter, perching on the edge with his legs crossed. The Captain just nodded letting his head drop back in his chair, his hands rubbing over his face like he could peel it off, saying nothing.

Natasha wrenched the door knob out of the wall, raining bits of drywall down onto the floor and closed the door, leaning back against it for a moment. “Did you know,” she brushed a bit of broken wall off her fingers waiting for Steve to look up at her. “Hydra records everything,” she slipped a disc into the DVD player and started up the entertainment center that accompanied every suite in the facility, spinning the remote between her fingers. “We recovered some truly enlightening footage when we broke Darcy out of Hydra’s tender care, even more just yesterday,” she looked over to Clint who had pulled the long knife from the sheath strapped to his thigh, slowly picking dirt from under his nails, watching them both from under his lashes, and nodded minutely. Natasha clicked the play button and static rained across the seventy five inch television before resolving into a full color picture of a gray walled room.

“What is this?” Steve leaned forward in his chair, his eyes flicking over the still recording, the time stamp ticking away time a second at a time.

“The security feeds from the Winter Soldier’s rooms,” the Widow leaned her forearms against the back of the couch, her eyes carefully watching the Captain’s face.

“Does Bucky know you have this?” he kept searching the screen for some sign of what he was supposed to be seeing.

“Darcy knows we’ve seen it,” was all Natasha said.

In the corner of the screen there was a tiny movement from what had first looked like a pile of blankets, dirty strings of brown hair peeked out from under the green wool blanket, eyes just visible over the top of the pile, peeking out carefully. “Is that?”  
“Yeah,” Clint’s voice came from the kitchen, quiet with tension; whatever Steve was meant to be watching wasn’t going to be any fun. “That’s Darcy in the corner, two months, give or take a day, from when Jane reported her missing,” the archer cleared his throat. “But just wait, there’s more.”

Minutes slowly ticked by, the bundle in the corner barely moving, but once Steve knew it was Darcy, he could see the subtle movement of her breathing. Suddenly the door at the top of the screen burst open, the Winter Soldier, clad only in his black tactical pants, pushed the door all the way to the wall, holding it there as he panted, wild eyes searching the room. The entire set of his body screamed predator, clearly not Steve’s beloved best friend, but purely Hydra’s Asset. The bundle in the corner resolved into a girl, her fingers frantically scrambling against the cold concrete walls behind her, digging herself into the corner as far as she could. “She looks terrified,” Steve gasped out, not even aware he’d been holding his breath, watching the man at the door slowly stalk towards the poor girl, her hands up in front of her, clearly pleading, her words falling on deaf ears.

“She is,” Natasha spun the remote slowly, watching Steve fidget. “Seeing that big man coming for her, knowing no one was going to stop him, not matter what he does to her?” Steve could see the tension in the Soldier’s body, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, making Steve’s palms sweat. “Hydra didn’t care one way or another if the Soldier broke his toy,” the Winter Soldier loomed over the girl, her hands up over her head as she curled into the corner, Steve thanked anyone that would listen that the video was silent. “Honestly it’s a miracle he didn’t kill her.” The man on the screen grabbed Darcy’s by the back of the head, easily batting her hands away as he wrapped her hair around his hand, pulling her up onto her knees, his other hand working the buckle open on his pants, and pushed her head back as far as it could go. From where Steve was sitting, he could see her eyes had gone wide, showing too much white as she pulled at the hand holding her, dragging her nails down the metal plates, trying to break herself free.

“I don’t need to see anymore,” Steve covered his face with his own hands, willing the image of his best friend looming over Darcy, intent clear on his face; out of his mind, but it burned though him no matter how he wished it away.

“You really do,” Clint said his voice devoid of emotion.

“Please,” the Captain looked to Natasha who simply shook her head.

“Watching,” she pointed the remote towards the screen. “Or I’ll turn on the sound, I promise you, it’s much worse when you can hear her beg.” Steve looked frantically between the assassins, but neither wavered. Natasha was thumbing the remote when he finally forced himself to look back at the television. “You leveled some pretty heavy accusations against our girl,” he could feel Natasha’s eyes boring into the side of his head. “Now you’re gonna watch until you realize how very wrong you were.” The Soldier on the video was holding Darcy’s head in both hands, his dick shoved between her lips, unrelentingly fucking her as tears streamed down her cheeks, her eyes tightly screwed shut. The seconds ticked by slowly on the time stamp in the corner, so slowly Steve was sure they had all but stopped, but Darcy continued to struggle against him, fingers digging frantically at his hands, fighting for breath around the flesh being forced into her throat. After what felt like an eon, Darcy’s hands fell limp at her sides, her lips tinged slightly blue when the Soldier finally finished, dropping the nearly unconscious girl back onto her blankets, not caring that she was gasping for breath as she vomited stomach bile and cum onto the concrete floor. The Soldier ignored her, shucking the pants hanging around his knees and washing his hands and face in the sink, then pulled on a pair of sweats. Natasha hit the fast forward, the room turning into a blur of the Soldier’s movements, with Darcy curled up on herself in the corner. When the Widow hit start again, Bucky was leaning over the sink, dry heaving repeatedly, his whole stance completely changed and his back to Darcy, who was still curled up into the corner, her eyes just peeking out from under her lashes, carefully watching as the man who had just violated her tried to purge himself completely. Her hands were clutching at the tattered t-shirt barely covering her naked body. Natasha pause the picture.

“So?” Clint spun the knife between his fingers and waited, watching Steve wipe his palms over and over on his jeans, swallowing convulsively.

“I was wrong,” he said quietly, breathing slowly through his nose, trying to calm the lurching bile that threatened to rise up the back of his throat.

“Yes,” Natasha clicked to a new video, the Soldier’s hand on the back of Darcy’s head, pushing her into the mattress, her eyes were locked on the camera as he pounded into her from behind, her body rocking obscenely with each of his thrusts. “There are years of footage, Captain, any time the room was occupied and the light was on, they were recording.”

“I get it,” Steve launched himself up to his feet, pacing the length of the room. “You can stop now.”

“You know,” Clint smacked the knife down on his jean clad thigh, making Steve jump. “I don’t think you do.” Natasha clicked through more videos, Darcy and the Soldier coming through the door together, her body held stiff, eyes devoid of the laughing girl he’d seen around the compound the past few months, more like the woman from the video footage they had originally found when searching for Bucky’s Kotehok. More videos scrolled through, the two were now tending wounds, Darcy using a needle and thread to sow shut a long gash on Bucky’s side, he was smiling and winking at her, clearly flirting as she dug the needle into his skin time and again. Short clips of them cleaning weapons, Bucky combing her hair; Steve watched the changes from aggressor and victim, to tender touches and stolen kisses, soft looks replaced the clear brutality, making Steve sink back into his chair, finally getting his stomach under control.

The Darcy on the screen burst into the cell with all the ferocity of the Winter Soldier’s entrance, up ending furniture as she went, tearing the room apart in her rage, she flung clothes and weapons out of the lockers along the wall, searching for something. Her hands closed around a long knife in a leather sheath, she clutched it tightly to her chest and dissolved into tears, collapsing to the floor. Steve looked over at Clint, who was still spinning the knife between his fingers, the same knife Darcy was cradling to her chest on the television.

“After everything,” the Captain looked between the assassins that invaded his apartment. “After she remembered.”

“Yeah,” Natasha clicked off the screen, but made no move to retrieve the disc. “She loves him.”

He pushed himself to the edge of his seat, hands working over his face, fingers carding into his hair until it stuck up all on its own. “I need.”

“You need to let them be tonight,” Clint jumped down off the counter, unclipping the knife sheath from around his thigh and leaving both the sheath and the naked blade on the counter. “And apologies to Darcy first.”

“Why?” the Captain looked at the knife on his kitchen counter that the Archer had carried since they had returned from Russia with Darcy, Bucky’s blade sitting lonely on his counter.

“Cause she’ll convince Bucky not to punch you in the face again,” Clint shrugged, tossing an ice pack from his freezer at him, though Steve was pretty sure that whatever damage his friend had done was probably mostly healed. The spy threw his arm around his companion and they both slipped out the door. Steve groaned, the DVD in the player burning into the back of his mind as he closed his eyes, Darcy’s ocean blue eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks, seared into the back of his eyelids.

*****

Steve fidgeted in his seat, tracing around the edge of the case he’d enclosed the DVD that the spy twins had so generously left in his apartment. The knife Clint had left sat sheathed next to the case, as he watched the common room door, every so often flicking his eyes down to his watch. He hadn’t been exactly specific on the time, but he’d thought it was implied. It was another ten minutes of nervous waiting before the young mother swept into the common room; her youngest perched on her hip. Steve sat there, struck dumb by the easy confident way she stalked toward him, cooing softly to the baby who stared up at her adoringly. She said nothing as the leaned back on the island stool next to him, waiting expectantly.

“So,” Steve folded his hands over the counter in front of him, unable to look into her eyes, hot shame at the way he’d acted, burning a hole through him. “I owe you a massive apology,” he pushed the DVD case and knife over the counter to her. “I was wrong and unfair,” he took a deep breath and chanced a look at Darcy, who sat stony faced, her daughter happily sucking on her pinky finger. “I let my anger and jealousy get the best of me, and I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry.”

Darcy sat there for a moment, her eyes searching for something deep in Steve’s eyes. “Okay,” she nodded and slid the DVD case closer to her, flipping it over. “What’s this?”

“Clint and Natasha left it at my place,” he ducked his head and scratched the back of his neck. “I figured it was yours, since it’s all Hydra footage from when they had you captive,” he sighed and looked up at her, finger again in baby Sofia’s mouth. “It’s graphic.”

“I can only imagine,” she stood, tucking the knife into the back of her pants and palming the DVD case. “Thank you for returning the knife, it was Yasha’s favorite, Clint was pretty fond of it, too. He must have really trusted you to leave it in your care.”

“I really am sorry, Darcy,” he stood watching her walk back to the door. “I was out of line.”

“Thank you for saying,” Darcy turned and looked him up and down. “I’ll tell Bucky that you’ve gotten your head out of your ass. But if I were you, I’d wait for him to come to you.”

“I’ll do that,” Steve nodded. “Thank you for coming.”

“I hate seeing Bucky so upset,” was all she said before she turned and walked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of Bucky and the kiddo's soon.


	24. Perfectly Imperfect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy St. Patty's Day!
> 
> Enjoy a chapter with only a tiny bit of angst!

Kitten

Chapter 24: Perfectly Imperfect

Darcy slipped the DVD into her laptop after dropping her three kids off at Jane and Thor’s apartment, the God of Thunder having all but begged for the chance to play with his new nieces and nephew. She smiled at the thought of her big puppy dog of a friend rolling around on the floor with her kids, even if the thought of being a mother of three was still so new that it didn’t feel quite real. 

She tucked her earbuds into her ears and clicked on the prompt to start up the video. The surveillance video’s time stamp ticked by as she was swallowed in memories, almost able to feel the scratchy wool blanket that she’d tucked herself under, and the cold damp floor of the cell she and Bucky had shared for nearly six years. She turned off the sound after the first few minutes, her panicked pleas too much to listen to, but kept watching, one hand covering over her mouth.

“What are you doing?” Bucky closed the apartment door quietly, walking up behind her to peer over her shoulder as she watched through the cut together video a second time. He stopped in his tracks when he saw his own image, black tactical pants around his ankles and his girl’s hair wrapped around his metal hand. “Why do you have this?”

“Natasha and Clint,” Darcy turned, taking in the white pallor of Yasha’s face, glassy eyes glued to the screen. “They had a little session with your friend the Captain.”

“Oh god,” he pulled his eyes from the laptop and looked around the room, finally noticing how empty it felt with just Darcy there, even after only one day. “They showed him this?”

“Yep,” letting her lips wrap around the word, her eyes watching him as he swallowed convulsively. She held out her hand to him, but he made no move to get any closer. “Steve called after you went to the gym, he apologized to me, really apologized, not the half assed needling shit he was doing, and he gave me the disc,” she slid the case it had come in across the counter. “And your old knife,” Darcy still had the knife tucked into the back of her jeans, and hesitated for just a moment before she pulled it out and handed it to him, reluctant to let it go after just having it back.

Bucky ran a hand over the knife, letting it sit on the counter. He took a long deep breath and looked back at the small screen sitting in front of Darcy in her kitchen, noticing the ear phones dangling around her shoulders, but not hearing anything coming from them, which he was grateful for. In the video he hand his metal hand wrapped around the back of her neck as her dead eyes looked directly into camera. “Please turn that off,” he choked out looking away, but even not seeing it didn’t keep the memory from surfacing. He could feel his hand against her neck, as she let him fuck into her, laying there without a sound, having given up. His heart lurched violently in his chest at the way she barely moved for nearly a month, her eyes fixed off in the middle distance, only getting up and taking care of herself when he pushed her to. His hand clenched and unclenched at the memories, the little whirls of the servos in his arm the only sound in the room.

“It gets better,” she put her hand over his, where it still clenched over the knife sheath, feeling the shifting plates of his knuckles under her fingers. Something about the metallic movement comforted her, relaxed her; she could feel a piece of her, deep inside, click into place and it was like a breath she didn’t know she was holding finally releasing.

“Darcy,” Bucky turned his hand so he could rub his thumb over the tops of her fingers, his eyes pleading into hers. “I hate myself every second of the day for what they made me do to you,” he ran a soft hand over her cheek, feeling the prickle of tears he wouldn’t acknowledge, threatening at the corners of his eyes and held his breath, willing the memories back away. “I play this and a thousand other memories over and over behind my eyes at night, all those things I did, the pain I caused.”

“Baby,” Darcy shut the laptop and pulled him closer by the string hanging down from the front of his sweatpants until he was standing between her legs, up against the metal seat of her stool. “I love you,” she tipped his face to look at her, the pads of her thumbs gently wiping away the treacherous tears that clung to his lashes. “This,” she waved at the computer’s closed lid. “Happened, not by either of our choice,” she emphasized. “But it did, and now,” she cupped his face in her hands and gave him a small smile. “It’s time to put it in the past, where it belongs, like all the other shitty things Hydra made us do, and only bring it out in our therapy sessions with Sam.”

“And that’s it,” Bucky let himself lean into her touch, her small fingers scratching lightly along his jaw, her nails catching deliciously at the two day old stubble just the way she knew he liked.

“That’s about the closest we’ll get to it,” she shrugged and grinned as his shoulders relaxed and his eyes drifted closed, humming gently as her nails scratched down the front of his throat, the noise vibrating though her fingers, warming her with familiarity. “You know,” she purred, wrapping her hands around the back of his neck so she could run her lips over the path her fingers had taken. “The kids are over with Uncle Thor right now,” Bucky braced his hand on the counter behind her as she bit and liked at his neck, her hands finding their way under the hem of his UnderArmer shirt. “We could go to our room, take advantage of the fact that Thor can’t get enough of our kids.”

“Our room?” he pulled back and looked at her, the slight upturn of the corner of her lips loosening the last of the knot in his chest the video had caused. “You mean?”

“Yeah Yasha, unless you want to go back to living with Captain America,” Darcy drew him back to her, running her hands around his back under his shirt to dip into the back of his sweats. “Our room,” she pushed her hands down over the globes of his ass, squeezing gently. “Our room, in our apartment, where we live with our children,” she nipped at his chin. “You know, if you can stand to be parted from your best friend.”

“I want,” he growled, scooping down to capture her lips with his, running his tongue over the seam of her lips until she yielded to him, letting his slip between her lips, groaning as she sucked gently at the intrusion, running her own tongue lovingly along his.

Darcy luxuriated under his kisses for a moment, before gently pushing him away and hopping off the stood, strolling across the living room with the weight of his gaze on her back. She turned back as she stood in the door of the master suite to look at him over her shoulder, her soldier still standing mostly stunned by her kitchen stool. “You best have those clothes off when you follow me.”

“You sure?” Bucky glanced for a moment at the closed laptop computer on the counter, before looking back at his Kitten as she leaned against the door frame, her body lax and pliant under his gaze.

Darcy winked and pulled her shirt over her head and threw it at him, hitting him in the face with the balled up cotton, that he hadn’t even bothered to try and deflect. “Oh, I’m sure,” she told him, turning her back to him and holding his gaze as she unhooked her bra and dropped it to the floor.

“As you wish, Kitten,” he grabbed the back of his shirt, dragging it over his head and dropping both of their shirts on the counter over the computer. Darcy laughed brightly as she disappeared though the bedroom door. He pulled his sweats off over his trainers, hoping across the floor as he pulled them off, throwing them on the floor as he followed her into their room, slamming the door behind him.

*****

Darcy poured a small box full of iridescent dust onto the table next to Clint’s ubiquitous mug of coffee, tapping the bottom to make sure it was completely empty before turning to the spies. “Seriously,” she raised her brow and looked at each of her friends in turn, then back to the sparkling pile of dust that slid across the table in the slight breeze from the vent above them.

“You brought me glitter?” Clint nudged the offending sparkles with the callused tip of his finger, frowning as some of them clung to his skin. “I’m not sure how to respond to this,” he looked over at Natasha, who was watching the granules making their way over the Formica table top, the other spy just shrugged.

“It’s the disc you gave the Captain,” she rolled her eyes at the suspicious looks the spies kept giving the DVD’s new state. “Bucky broke it,” she shrugged. “With his prostatic fist,” she mimed his fist crushing the disc between his fingers. “Even though I told him it wasn’t even a fraction of what we have, and it was a copy. He squished it for like an hour, he told me it was therapeutic,” she smiled at the memory of him grinding the broken bits of DVD between his fingers, a satisfied look on his face that she only half thought came from the hour they’d spend relearning each other. “I’m not even sure I got all of it up off the counter.”

“Steve needed to know you’d never willingly submit yourself to Hydra,” Natasha seemed to lose interest in the DVD’s leavings, sitting back in her chair and sipping her coffee.

“Well,” Darcy dropped into the only empty chair at the table, catching the Captain’s eyes from across the room. He looked away quickly, sad puppy eyes digging at her, even as she held her resolve not to let him off the hook for his stupidity just yet. “He knows,” she sighed as the Captain looked up at her under his lashes, checking to see if she was still looking, his shame filled eyes casting back down to the plate of food he hadn’t touched since she’d walked into the cafeteria. “He keeps giving me these sad pitying looks every time he sees me,” she huffed and scooted her chair closer to Clint’s, putting her back to the apologetic smile Steve gave her hopefully. “I wanna smack the shit out of him,” she crossed her arms over her stomach. “Wipe those puppy dog eyes right off his face,” she leaned into the archer. “I’m not broken,” her voice barely over a whisper. “I don’t need pity. I just want him to acknowledge that I never did anything wrong.”

“We’re working on it,” Clint ran his fingers soothingly through her curls.

“Well, stop,” she smiled up at the archer’s chuckle. “He’s a big boy, he needs to figure it out for himself,” she snuggled between the two spies, stealing Clint’s coffee, taking a small sip. “Yes, I was a stripper in college, cliché jokes aside, it wasn’t my first choice in professions, but I was good at it, and I don’t regret doing it,” she tipped the cup back, draining the last dregs of cold coffee from the mug. “Yes I posed nude and let them plaster it up on the internet, and we all know the internet never forgets, but I chose to do that,” she shrugged, looking mournfully down into the empty cup, only to have Natasha swap it out for her nearly full one. Darcy rewarded the Widow with a brilliant grin, taking a deep breath from the steaming cup. “Bucky knows and doesn’t care,” she took a tentative sip of the hot liquid, holding a small secret smile to herself, remembering the look her boyfriend had given the glossy photo from the folder Steve had given her; he had told her she looked like she belonged on the nose of a B-52 Bomber with a wistful sound in his voice. “I kinda think he’s secretly got my picture on his desktop,” she more than thought, she saw a glimpse of her red lace clad breasts as he’d clicked something open on his screen after he’d completely demolished the DVD that was still blowing around on the table.

“I know Clint does,” Natasha rolled her eyes. Darcy cuffed the archer on the back of his head lightly.

“What,” he shrugged; tickling his fingers up her sides, making her squirm, a small giggle trickling out of her mouth when she tried to stick her tongue out at him. “It’s not like I haven’t seen the full show,” eh teased, giving Natasha a sly wink as Darcy buried her face in his neck.

“Still,” she grumbled into his shoulder. “It’s the principle.”

“I regret nothing,” Clint wrapped his arms around her waist, rubbing a hand up and down her back soothingly.

“I love you too, Hawk,” Darcy mumbled, only slightly mollified that while he might have her picture on his computer, it was more because she was one of his closest friends and it was probably right up there with Natasha’s.

“So,” the Widow plucked her mug of coffee from where Darcy was holding it loosely between her hands on the table top. “How are the kids?”

“Good,” the younger woman replied, comfortably wrapped in her friends strong arms, the rest of the room falling away to just the three of them. “Still with Thor.”

“Sasha and I have a date,” Clint pushed her curls away from his face. “I promised to teach her sign language after lunch.”

“I’m sure she can’t wait,” Darcy nodded, her oldest girl’s issues with speaking weren’t because of her inability to hear, they’d all gotten a complete physical from Bruce that morning, but anything to be able to communicate with her daughter more easily. Both Sam and Bruce told them that while she had the ability to speak, she might never actually utter a word. Trauma was a strange thing, affecting everyone differently. Nikolai just seemed angry, Sasha for all the affection she must have lacked under Hydra’s care, seemed to be a loving little girl; she just refused or had mentally blocked the ability to speak. “Thank you.”

“She’s my niece or goddaughter or something,” the archer shrugged it off. “I kinda love those little rug rats, so you know, anything for them, right?” 

Darcy kissed his cheek and stood, stretching slightly as she smiled at him. “So, let’s go pick them up?”

“Yes,” Natasha dropped both the mugs in the bin to be washed and left the glittering mess that Darcy had dumped on the table. “I think Sofia and I have much to discuss.”

“You may not turn my little girl into a tiny Widow,” Darcy waved her finger in her friends face, receiving only a smirk in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for continuing to read and comment on this story, it makes my day when I see notifications of a comment!


	25. Lilies and Forgiveness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry its been so long since I've updates. I gotta say, I struggled a lot with this chapter, and I'm mostly happy with how it turned out.
> 
> Enjoy.

Kitten

Chapter 25: Lilies and Forgiveness

Darcy pushed a vase full of Casa Blanca lilies onto the dining room table, exchanging the barely wilting calla lilies that she’d put on the table only a couple of days before, and sighed. The room was filled with vases full of every conceivable kind of lily you could find at the single florist that was a twenty minute drive from the base, the flowers perched out of reach of her children’s' questing fingers. “You gonna forgive Steve anytime soon, babe?” she cocked her hip on the leather chair her boyfriend was curled up in, a book of fairy tales in his hand, and Sasha tucked under his chin half asleep. “Cause I think he’s exhausted Sarah’s flower supply, and frankly, I can’t begin to think about where I’m going to put all of these vases if this continues.”

“I’m waiting to see if he breaks down and starts buying jewelry,” Bucky winked over the back of the chair, tucking a stray hair back into his daughter’s braid. “I thoroughly enjoyed those chocolates he was buying last week.”

“You’re an ass,” she pushed off the chair and wondered into the kitchen to start dinner. “He’s your best friend, it’s time to quit this charade and make up already.”

“I don’t know, doll,” he put the book down on the table and shifted Sasha down onto the couch, where she curled onto her side, fast asleep. “With all those things he said to you, don’t know if I’m ready.”

“I’m ready,” Darcy threw back at him, softening her words with a small smile. “As nice as it is to have him groveling and showering me with gifts, I’m kinda starting to feel sorry for him.” She stared into the fridge, cataloging all the things that they had on hand and shutting the door with a huff. “He sits alone in the mess, no one will sit with him cause they’re all too wrapped up in either their own shit or doting on our kids, and he just looks so lost. He needs you.”

“Don’t know if he deserves me,” Yasha crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m still pissed.”

“And that’s okay,” she pulled out a pot and filled it with water before putting it on the stove. “You can still be mad, and make up with him at the same time, might help you rub off some of that anger. At least go talk to him, let him say something this time without hitting him.”

“You really want me to make up with that jack ass?” he rounded the counter and pulled her into his arms, her warm body fitting right into the curve of his larger one. He swept the hair off her neck with his metal fingers and nuzzled his face into her shoulder. “You’re too nice, kitten.”

“Nope,” Darcy pulled him closer, letting his body sway around hers as they danced slowly in the kitchen, no music needed when they were together. “I’ve got claws, remember.”

“I love your claws,” he hummed, turning them slowly. “Nothing ‘bout you I don’t love like oxygen.”

“Sap,” she smiled, hardly able to believe that this was her life, her daughter sleeping soundly on the couch, baby in her crib, and her son spending the afternoon with his Aunt Nat, who he’d finally bonded with. “It’s time, go make up, and stop beating up my friend every day, Clint is not built for Super Soldier sparring.”

“Ahah, so that’s the real reason,” Bucky spun her in his arms, capturing her lips briefly. “You just want me to stop beating up on Barton.”

“He’s fragile, Buck,” she smiled. “Plus, if you beat him up, I have to spar with Nat, and she’s got sharp elbows.”

“I’ll call him in the morning,” he let her go back to the stove to dump a box of macaroni into the boiling water. “Satisfied?”

“That comes after the kids are in bed, Yasha,” she winked. “I plan on being very satisfied later.”

“Minx,” he laughed and snapped his teeth at her. “You’re insatiable.”

“I’m not hearing you complaining,” she turned down the heat under the pasta and rounded the island to go down the hall to check on Sofia. “In fact, I remember you being the one to keep me up last night.”

“What can I say,” Bucky whispered, peering over her head to look through the open door of the kid’s room at their sleeping infant. “I’ve got some lost time to make up for.”

“You’ve got the rest of your life,” Darcy leaned back into his chest and pulled his arms around her waist, reaching up to nip at his chin. 

“Good,” he smiled down at her.

“So, go invite your stupid friend to dinner tomorrow night,” she pushed him back. “Go talk to him, and stop mopping around, don’t think I don’t see you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bucky stole a kiss as she pushed him into the living room, towards the apartment door. “Sure I can’t wait until morning.”

“Get,” Darcy swatted at his ass, grinning at the indigent squeak he made as her hand connected firmly with the seat of his jeans.

*****

The apartment was empty; at least that’s how it felt to Steve. He sat in the living room, looking at the gray walls like they were simultaneously too big and closing in on him all at once. Everything that had been Bucky’s was gone, including the matching leather chair that was once across from the one he was sitting in. He flicked through channels on the television, never stopping long enough to really see what was on, too restless to watch anything, but too depressed to even contemplate pulling on real clothes and make his way to the gym to burn off the energy. He was ready to throw in the towel and climb into bed at half past seven in the evening when there was a knock at his door. Steve thumbed off the TV and pulled himself off the couch, looking down at his thread bear boxers, clearly not dressed for company.

“Jarvis,” he called quietly, his voice gruff. “Who’s at the door?”

“Sergeant Barnes, Captain,” the AI replied. “Would you like for me to open the door?”

“Yeah,” Steve ran his hands through his hair. Bucky had seen him in worse shape, but something in him told him that now was not the time to face his estranged friend in just a pair of boxers that left nothing to the imagination. “Tell him to make himself at home, I’ll be right out.”

Steve stood in his bedroom, the floor littered with dirty clothes and piles of clean ones, nearly indistinguishable from each other. He was a mess, not just in his room, he knew the kitchen was full of dirty dishes, and stacks of take-out containers, nothing had been tidied in nearly a month, not since Bucky had left. He blew out a long puff of air and grabbed a pair of sweats that he was mostly sure were clean and dragged them on, followed by an old Shield shirt, running his fingers through his hair one last time before turning to the door. It was time to face the music. He wouldn’t blame Bucky if he said he didn’t ever want to see Steve again, it was about what he deserved, probably accompanied by another crack to the jaw. He hoped for better, though.

Bucky stood in the kitchen; hands on his hips as he took in the mess that Steve had been living in, a look of deep disappointment on his face. “You know, punk,” he shook his head slowly. “If Darcy knew you were living like such a sad sack, she would have pushed me out the door weeks ago.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, a deep blush rising on his cheeks. “Haven’t felt much like cleaning lately, Buck,” he mumbled, moving slowly into the room and leaning heavily on his hands against the kitchen island. “No reason for me to try and tidy.”

“Darcy says we gotta kiss and make up, Stevie,” his friend tipped a tower of Chinese food containers into the overflowing sink. “I think she might be right.”

“You managed to wrangle yourself a smart one, jerk,” Steve sighed, his head bowed towards his hands as he tried to pull himself together. “But, I don’t know if I’m worth it, man, things I said.”

“Darcy’s forgiven you, says its water under the bridge,” Bucky shrugged, leaning on the counter next to Steve’s hands. “Figure, she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, if she can let that stuff you said to her go, then I guess I can too,” he crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the top of Steve’s head. “Got some conditions though.”

“Anything,” the captain felt like all the air had left his lungs, his knees barely holding up. “Anything you both need, I’m willing.”

“First,” he ticked off on his fingers. “You ever say anything like that to my girl again, and you ain’t getting another chance.” He watched as his friend nodded eyes still on his hands on the counter. “Next, you apologies to her, in person, no more flowers, because seriously, we’re running out of space, and as much as she loves lilies, the apartment’s starting to get a little stuffy.”

“I can do that,” Steve pushed up off the counter and looked his friend in the eye for the first time since he’d come in.

“How’d you know she loved lilies?” Bucky asked, still leaning against the counter.

“Asked Jarvis,” he shrugged. “Figured every girl loves flowers, and chocolate.”

“I ate the chocolate,” Bucky laughed. “Sasha helped. That girl’s got a sweet tooth to rival yours.”

“You ate Darcy’s apology chocolate?” Steve rolled his eyes. “I was wrong, your girls a saint.”

“Yes she is,” he nodded, ticking off one last finger. “Which brings us to the next condition, you gotta come to dinner at ours tomorrow night, cause Darcy’s insisting. She’s making pot roast, and you are going to tell her how wonderful it is, because, bless her, but she is not a cook, and it’s going to be dry, and you’re going to love it.”

“I’m sure we’ve both had worse than a dry pot roast,” he smirked. “You haven’t taken over cooking yet?”

“She insists that she’ll get better if she practices,” Bucky shrugged, giving his friend a what can you do look. “I love her; I can live through her experimenting in the kitchen. She makes the world’s best pancakes, and her grilled cheese is second to none, just about everything else though,” he wavered his hand back and forth. “She puts a lot of love into her cooking, either way.”

“I will enjoy every bite,” Steve vowed. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” his friend nodded and shoved off the counter and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re coming with me this weekend to New York, and you’re gonna help me pick out a ring for my girl.”

“I can’t think of anything I want to do more, Buck,” the captain smiled so wide it felt like his face would split. “I’m happy for you, jerk.”

“Thanks, punk,” Bucky returned the smile. “I think this is the part where we hug.”

Steve wrapped his arms around his friend’s shoulders, holding on maybe just a bit too tight. “So, tomorrow night?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I’d bring you over tonight, but Sasha’s sacked out on the couch, and I’m pretty sure Nik’s gonna spend the night at Aunt Nat’s, those two are inseparable.”

“I see them in the gym every day,” Steve nodded, leaning back against the counter. “It’s good to have you back, Buck.”

“Thanks for apologizing to my girl,” he smiled and took a look around the apartment again. “You want a hand with this place, cause, I mean it Steve, this apartment is rank, how the hell did you let it get this bad?”

“I just,” he sagged, shoulders falling and head bent. “I just couldn’t bring myself to care; I’d driven my best friend away, alienated my team, all because I’m a jealous asshole. Nothing seemed important anymore.”

“Right,” Bucky steered him around the counter to the sink. “You wash, I’ll dry, then we’ll see about taking the fucking trash out, punk.”

“Thanks, jerk,” Steve turned on the hot water and pulling the dish soap out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My muse also loves lilies, just like Darcy. She gives her chocolate to Bucky, too.


	26. The Story So Far

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we've made it to the end... for now at least. I have to thank everyone who has stuck it out through this story, and a special thank you to ktravierso, who has graciously offered to beta my stories, and I have more than happily accepted.
> 
> Enjoy!

Kitten

Chapter 26: The Story So Far

Bucky leaned back on the counter, a wet kitchen towel thrown haphazardly over his shoulder as he took in his friend’s messy apartment. Clearly Steve hadn’t been taking care of himself. While the dishes on the drying rack finished air drying, Bucky slowly worked his way around the counters pulling half empty cartons of Chinese food and take out pasta tubs, then dumping them in a trash bag. “Why don’t you open the windows, Punk,” he grumbled as he stuffed yet another half empty pizza box into the bag and tied it off, dumping it by the door. “And I’ll call Darce; let her know we haven’t killed each other yet.”

“Will you tell me about her?” Steve’s voice came from the bedroom, where he was sorting through his dirty clothes. “I mean, now, not one of your Hydra stories.”

“Sure,” Bucky dropped another full bag by the door and used his shirt to wipe his face. “She’s great with the kids,” he pulled out his phone and shot off a quick text letting his girl know that it would be a bit longer. “Nikolai is a bit difficult, to say the least,” he tucked his phone back into his pocket and pulled another bag from the roll. “He spent the most time away from the nanny, and the most time with Hydra operatives, so that’s understandable,” Bucky worked his way into the living room, dumping a couple of ceramic mugs into the bag that both looked like they’d started to grow their own ecosystem. “She’s patient, sitting for hours with him as he tries to work through the anger he’s been dealing with, like Sam level patient, and he’s starting to relax a little.”

“Nikolai is almost six, right?” Steve threw a full bag of clothes over his shoulder and made his way into the hall bathroom that also housed the washer and dryer. “That’s a hard age anyway.”

“Yeah,” Bucky slumped down on the couch and rubbed at the back of his neck, they’d been working for almost an hour, and it barely looked like they’d made a dent. He could hear Steve setting the washer, and water filling the drum. “Steve, how bout we call this a night? Come over, talk to Darcy, she’ll feed you something that didn’t come from a fast food restaurant. I mean, I’m pretty sure it came from a box, so don’t hold your breath or anything, but at least it was made with love.”

“You sure that’s okay,” the Captain stuck his head back down the hall, looking at the disaster that was his living room, and feeling defeated all over again, how had he let it get this bad?

“If she saw this shit hole, she’d drag you over anyway,” Bucky pulled himself slowly off the couch and tied off the bag he was holding, the mugs at the bottom clinking noisily. “This way we can spare her the gory bits.” He dropped the bag with the others and went back into the kitchen to lean on counter, no longer filled with dirty dishes.

“So she’s a great mom,” Steve washed his hands and dug through the pantry for a new roll of paper towels, only to discover he didn’t have any. “Tell me about her.”

“She hides from the scary parts of movies,” the Soldier bumped his friend away from the sink with his hip, to wash his own hands; unabashedly whipping them dry on the back of Steve’s shirt. “Seriously, the girl can kill a man with her pinky, I remember ops when we hadn’t showered in days, covered in blood, and she’d still want me; but she puts her hands over her eyes when there’s a clown on the screen, or an intense car chase. It’s adorable.”

Steve just smiled and patted his friend on the shoulder. He looked down at the ratty sweats he was in and the t-shirt that should really go into the trash, not out in public, but Bucky just shrugged and pulled him to the door, grabbing the keys that Steve had miraculously actually put on their hook, and locked the door behind them. “You can sleep on the couch tonight,” Bucky said over his shoulder. “You aren’t sleeping in there until I’m sure there isn’t a colony of genetically enhanced spiders living in your bathroom.”

“I’m sure the radioactive soap scum would have taken care of them by now,” Steve chuckled, jogging a few steps to keep up with his friend. “That or the mold that lives in the soap dish would have culled them for food.”

“Yeah, you are absolutely not going back there until we’ve cleaned it from top to bottom, cause damn man,” Bucky put his hand on the scanner outside his apartment listening to the locks engage. The sound was so different from his cell in Russia, but it still twisted his gut just a little to hear the electronics work. He wasn’t ready to tell Tony that just yet, wasn’t ready to face how the little noise poked at his psyche, brittle as it was sometimes. “Kitten?” he called softly, seeing Sasha still sleeping on the couch, and the door to the kid’s room still open.

“Yasha,” Darcy’s head poked around the corner a smile on her face. “And Steve,” she ran her hands through her messy hair, pulling it back into a ponytail. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Cap?”

“Steve’s apartment is unlivable,” Bucky kissed her gently and scooted around her, his hand trailing over her hips as he made his way into the kitchen. “Make yourself at home, punk, just don’t wake the niblet.”

Steve stood awkwardly in the hallway and took a long look at the apartment. Bookshelves dominated the walls, stuffed full of books of all kinds, kid’s toys were tucked away in bins and the TV was playing a cartoon quietly. It felt homey, good and lived in the way his just didn’t; here the walls didn’t feel like they were closing in. He took a tentative step towards the living room and saw the little girl on the couch, her hands raised over her head, and face slack with sleep. He had the urge to tuck the single curl that lay across her forehead back behind her ear, but resisted, rubbing his palms on the thighs of his sweats. He sank down in the leather chair, the twin of the one he’d been camped out on in his own apartment, and accepted a beer as Bucky passed it to him, popping the top effortlessly.

“Nikolai should be home soon,” Bucky sunk down on the end of the couch his daughter wasn’t sleeping on, opening his own beer. “We’ve got mac and cheese and turkey sandwiches,” he shrugged. “The kids are pretty picky, and Sasha’s going through a bit of an only yellow foods phase,” he took a long pull at his beer. “Sam says it’s fine, and normal; she’s trying to exert control over her environment, and as long as she’s still eating, we should just kinda go with it.”

Steve nodded, drinking the beer that was so much more watery then what he’d remembered from before the ice, the taste stale and bitter on his tongue. “I love turkey sandwiches.”

*****

Bucky turned the blue velvet case over and over in his hands as Steve drove them back from the city. “Is it stupid that I’m crazy nervous?”

“No,” Steve flicked the turn signal at the only stop light in the town near the Facility, taking them down the dirt road that lead home. “It’s a big step.”

“We have three kids,” he rolled his eyes, clapping the clamshell case shut only to open it again. “We’ve been together for five years, six if you count that first year, though I really don’t want to. She loves me.”

“A lot, jerk,” his friend looked at him from the corner of his eye as he slowed the car down before the final turn. “She’s put up with a lot, and there still so much more.”

“We’ve got years of trying to heal,” Bucky agreed, shutting the jewelry box again. “It’s worth it though.” He tucked the box into the pocket of his leather jacket, keeping his metal fingers around it, holding it tight like he was scared that he might lose it if he didn’t. “You don’t mind hanging with Natalia and the kids tonight?”

“Well,” Steve tried to suppress a grin, but couldn’t. “She is still giving me that look.”

“That, you fucked up and I’m contemplating whether or not I want you to keep breathing, look,” Bucky unclipped his seatbelt and put his hand on the door handle. “Yeah, I know that look. She’ll come around,” he pushed the door open and pulled himself out of the low seat of the sports car. “Only took me fifty years, give or take, for her to stop looking at me like I failed her.”

“Jerk, you shot her twice,” Steve pocketed his keys and followed Bucky back into the building, throwing his arm around his friend’s shoulder. “I think she was justified in giving you the Black Widow death stare.”

“You insinuated that one of her best friends was a Pro Skirt, punk,” he bumped his hip with his own. “I think prostitute trumps bullet here.”

“I suck,” color crept up the back of Steve’s neck, turning the tips of his ears a bright red. “Have I said I was sorry in the last hour?”

“Yeah,” Bucky hummed, placing his hand on the scanner outside his apartment. “But I could hear it again, like for the next twenty years.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said sincerely as the door swung open.

*****

Darcy dropped her bag on the kitchen counter, the eerie silence of the apartment making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She palmed her keys and set them silently on the marble countertop, quickly checking the Glock 26 on her hip before moving further into the apartment. The living room was empty, but she could see a faint light down the hall coming from the master bedroom. She slid into the shadows and stalked down the hall towards the light. She crouched down at the door and pushed it slowly open, a hand still on her gun as the flickering light bathed the hallway in a warm glow. Sitting on the bed was Bucky, cross legged in a pair of soft jeans and a dark Henley.

“What’s all this?” Darcy pulled herself up off the floor and flicked the safety on her gun in a smooth movement.

“Darcy Lewis,” Bucky slid off the bed and down onto his knee, holding up the blue velvet jewelry case, the ring in the center glittering in the candle lit room. “Will you marry me?”

Darcy froze, looking at the man who she loved beyond reason, her room lit up with candles and the ring, sitting nestled in its box. Her hands slowly came up to her face, covering her mouth for a moment as she took a long, deep breath and nodded. “Of course I will, Yasha,” she breathed out, dropping to her knees in front of him, closing her hands around his.

“Do you want me to?” he asked, letting her pull the box from his hands as she looked at the deco style ring, the oval diamond in the center surrounded by dark blue seed sapphires and silver filigree. She just nodded, not trusting her voice. He pulled the ring from its case and slid it over her finger, gently settling it on her finger, twisting and turning her hand in the dim light, letting the diamond capture the light. “We’ll have to discuss wedding rings, cause I can’t wear one,” he sighed, letting the box drop to the floor as she pulled him into a deep kiss, his words flying from his head as she pushed him back up onto the bed and crawled up after him.

“I really don’t care,” she muttered as she worked the button on his jeans. “It’s beautiful and I love you, and nothing else matters.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for taking the time to read Kitten. If you could take one more moment and leave a small token in the box below, my muse and I would be eternally grateful.

**Author's Note:**

> Please remember to leave your comments in the section below. Kudos are also appreciated.


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